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Full text of "Atari ST User - Vol. 1 No. 6 (1986-08)(Europress)(GB)"

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Vol. 1 No. 6 



Atari 




August 1986 



User 




Promoting 
a company's 
image -with 
ST graphics 



Banking on your ST, with Cash/ink's new accounts software 
• H & D Base unveiled, is it really better than Dhase II? 
• Games on the ST: We look at the latest releases 



f~ 



>> 



BRING Twillstar IHTO YOUR HOME 



WALllJi^ jV 




r 'ff'fT"l 



TCL Special 
Packages 



AATARI 

Power Without the Price 



TCL 1 

520 STM Computer with 5001c Disk 
Drive and High Rob 
Monochrome Monitor £575.00 



TCL 2 

520 STM Computer with 600k Disk 
Drive and Medium Resolution 
Colour Monitor £77500 



TCL 3 

62GSTMComputerwith 1 MBYTE 
Disk Drive and High Res 
Monochrome Monitor £635.00 



TCL 4 

520 STM Computerwith 1 MBYTE 
Disk Drive and Medium Resolution 
Colour Monitor £WS00 

TCLB 

1O40STF with built in 1 MBYTE 
Disk Drive and High Resolution 
Monochrome Monitor £790.00 

TCL £ 

1040 STF with built in 1 MBYTE 
Disk Drive and Medium Resolution 
Colour Monitor £950.00 



All TCL Pact— ges come 
complete with all interconnecting 
cables and are supplied will. ST 
Basic. ST Logo, and Ut Word 



Printers 



CITIZEN 120 D 

This new citizen 120D with 120 CPS 
end 25 CPS NLQ comes with 
tractor and friction feed as 
standard. IBM and Epson 
Gompailble with TWO years 
Warranty £159.00 



CITIZEN MSPIO 
The new citUen MSPIO with 160 
CPS Draft and 40 CPS NLO. With 
TWO years Warranty £269.00 




I 
I 
I 



BROTHER M1109 NLQ 

Printer 100cps Directional Logic 
Seeking Friction feed and 
secondery optional tractor 
feed £189.00 

NEW 
STAR NL-10 

Fine Ncar-Letier-Quality, 100% 
compatibility and total reliability 
all in one easy to use printerfor 
quality, ease of operation and 
ae amiability, nothing boats the Star 
NL-10. You got outitanfling print quality 
at Mb c&s in draft mode and 30 cps in 
near letter quality. Pius, ttie sleek NL-10 
offers full compatibility with mod 
popular computers through plug In 
interlace cartridges. Just insert IM 
appropriate plug in interface cartridge 
'or your IBM-PC. Corfmodora. Apple lie 
or oine' parallel computer and your Star 
NL-19 If rgrfv IP print, TovC" a DVtlOn 
on tneconuoipdnelioseiilie print pitch 
{3 choices), to trtociihctypefjco and !o 
print in aithw dtaft or NLQ mode. You 
caneven set [eft and righi margins, make 
top at (or <n settings and control forward 

ana nweise feed in the smallest pitch, 
£229.00 





COLOUR PRINTERS 



EPSON LX80 

With 100CPS draft and 16CPSNL0 

and optional tractor adaptor end 
sheet feeder. This primer has a 
standard parallel connection and 
accepts, all other Epson BOhal 
Pareiiei boards with external dip 
switches for easy access and 
internal IK buffer. It offers a 
high specification 
at a low pri&e. £229.00 



EPSON L0800 

24 Pin Dot Matrix Printer offers a 
high 200 CPS draft speed and near 
teller quality at 67 CPS with high 
resolution graphics and a variety 
of fonts £58500 



ALSO AVAILABLE 

Epson FX 85 £365.00 

Epson FX 105 £436.00 
Seikosha GP 50A -iParallell £69.00 
Saikoslia GP 50S inc. 

Printer UF + cables £69.00 

Canon PW 1080A INLQJ £249.00 

Canon A55 £379.00 



DA1SYWHEEL PRINTERS 

QUENDATA OWP 1120 
with optional tractor/sheet feeder 
and 13" paper width facility. 
This Daisywhee) primer will) 20 
CPS has 96 character pnntwheel 
compatible with the QUME. 
Standaid Centronics interface, 
(optional RS232 C( £16900 

Brother HR 15X1 C3B9.0O 

Juki 6100 £285.00 

Juki 2200 £27500 

Juki 6300 £79900 



TRACTOR ADAPTERS 


FX85 


£33.00 


LXSO 


£23.00 


Juki 6100 


£129.00 


Juki 6300 


£12900 


Ouendata DWP 1120 


£114.00 


Brother HR 15 


£95.00 


LQ 800 


£4300 


SHEET FEEDER 




Juki 6100 


£173.00 


Juki 6300 


£ 173.00 


Ouendata OWP 1120 


£165.00 


Brother HR 15 


£212.00 


1X80 


£55.00 


PRINTER RIBBONS 


Brother HR 5 


£3.45 


Brother EP 44 


£2.65 


Brother M1009 


£4.60 


Brother HR 15/25 


£5.45 


Mu-Ui-strike 




Brother HR 15'25 fabric 


£4.85 


Canon PW 1156A/1O80 


£6.85 


Da«sysw p 2000 Mutti-strifce £4.00 


Daesystep 200)0 fabric 


£6.30 


Epson FX'MX/RXSO 


£4.50 


Epson LXSO 


£4.90 


Epson MX 100 


£5.80 


Epson LO1S0Q 


£6.60 




£5.40 


Epson OX 100 fabric 


£4.85 


Juki 610O multi-sttike 


£3.20 


Juki 6100 smgle-strike 


£1.95 


Juki 6300 multi-slriko- 


£3.05 


Juki 6300 fabric 


£4.10 


Juki 220O single-strike 


£2.95 


Juki 2200 correctable 


£2.ea 


Kaga KP B10J910 


£6.85 


MP166 


£4.50 


OK 1 microline60/82/B3 


£207 


Quendata 2000 Multi-strike £3.97 


Ouendata 2000 fabric 


£6.30 


Riloman 80 


£6.30 


Seikosha GP30 


£4.00 


Seikosha GP 100/250 


£4.30 


Seikosha GP 500 


£4.95 


Shimva CP80 mulll-strlka 


£5.50 


CPB0 fabric 


£5.46 


Walters WM80 multi-stri ke £5.30 


WarltersWMSO fabric 


£5.46 


Wm2QQQ 


£5.90 




SF354 

500k Disk Drive £133.00 

SF314 

1 MBYTE Disk Orive £175.00 

SH207 

20 MBYTE Hard Dls* £750.00 

SM124 

12* High Resolution 
Monochrome Monitor £133.00 
SC1424 

14" Medium Resolution 

Colour Monitor £349.00 

Printer Lead for ST Series £izoo 

SERVICES 

We have a 

comprehensive range of 
spares for the ST. Backed 
bu our in-htouse Service 
Department. 



I 



Accessories 



LISTING PAPER 

irxgvszooo ew.oo 

Teleprinter Roll £4.50 

Teleprinter Roll Holder £ 14.00 

PRINTER LABELS 

1000 90 x 36mm 1 across £5.70 

20QO 90 x 36mm 2 across £12, 



CREDIT FACILITIES 

Full credit facilities now available 
nationwide 
' LOW DEPOSITS 
■ FAST FRIENDLY SERVICE 
• UP TO 3 YEARS TO PAY 
We liaue negotiated with a leading 
Finance Company to provide this 
additional service for our clients. 
Can lor i\mhei details 



How to Order 



You can purchase any of the items 
listed. All you have to do is write 
your requirements on a sheert of 
paper, and w* will despatch your 
goods within 24 hours, subject to 
availability. 

Please add the following amounts 
for Postage and Packing. 
Items below C10.00 add £1.50 

Items below £50.00 add £2.50 
Items below £100.00 add £3.50 
Items over £100.00 add £8,00 

IUK Mainland only) 

All prices include VAT at 15*i 
'No Hidden Extras' 
Please enclose your cheque 
made payable to: 

TWILLSTAR COMPUTERS LTD, 
Access/ Visa Card n>lders: 
Call us on 

01-571 5938 or 574 5271 




TELEPHONE ORDERS 
,1011574 5271 

Telex No. 25247 attn TLL 



Canon PJ1030A 



£440.00 



T~ 



Twillstar Computers Limited 

Apex House, Blandford Road, 
Norwood Green, Southall, Middx. UB2 4HD 

.""• '-■ - ", -- "";■ ■;■:"■ ''"'■■ ■■■:"'"- ■■..";>•••■• ■"■ : " ■■*■'' J 



. Atari ST User August 1986 ■ 



AST 



Sales are hotting 
up with the sun 



MIKE COWLEY reporting 



AS I write this, the weather would be more 
appropriate to Marrakesh than dear old Manchester. 
Such is ihe surfeit of sunshine that we are no longer 
waking up to the sound of the birds coughing. It is 
heat wave time in Britain which even during July and 
August Is as rare as seeing Albert Tatlock buying a 
round in a re-run of Coronation Street- 

So what has all this got to do with computers in 
general and the ST in particular? Well traditionally 
when people's thoughts turn to basking on beaches in 
Margate or Majorca, it is the computer manufacturers 
who get browned off through lost sales. 

However it seems that Atari will be the exception 
this year with some skilful marketing ploys having 
dispensed with the annual summer time blues. The 
company here in the UK reports it has been doing 
"raiher nicely, thank you very much" as a result of 
some adroit special deals. 

By offering the 520STM in various packages with 
savings of up to £196, sales have in fact more than 
held their own during the mid year term. However a 

number of de aters are getting s littlG concerned a bout 
the knock-on effect once the prices rise again. 

"Once people discover they've just m issed out on a 
good deal, we'll fi nd ourselves with a lot of unsold STs 
on our shelves for some time to come." muttered one. 

Not that the Atari UK paopla go along with this. For 
they believe that people have become conditioned to 
short term promotions. And if they really want an ST 
they will buy one. Mind you, it will be interesting to 
see whether or not they do decide to extend that 
special offer period. 

**• 

ONE other noticeable effect of the summer is the 
dearth of hard news — particularly on the computer 
front. As a result industry hacks become particularly 
prone to speculative rather than factual articles. "I 
think some of them sit on the loo looking up af the 
ceiling and then write whatever they imagine they see 
there", commented Atari UK boss Max Bambridge. 

Currently the computer press is suggesting that 
Atari has in the pipeline machines capable of 
everything from cap dancing to unarmed combat. 

The truth of the situation - according to Max 
Bambrfdge - is this; Atari is su'JI well on target for the 
launch of the 2mb ST r the 2080 as it will presumably 

be called. This will be a true 32 bit machine which 

because of its incredible speed will be multi usee 
multi tasking: 

ft will run Unix, thanks to Atari signing a licensing 
agreement with AT & Tin the USA. Existing ST users 
will almost certainly be offered the option to upgrade 
their machines to enjoy the same facility. 




But what about the all important price? Atari is still 
hoping to be able to offer the basic 2mb model at less 
than £1,000. If this proves to be the case. 
Commodore's A mlga may as well take its bouncing 
ball home. 

+ * * 

TECHNOLOGY, like Italian cabinets after the Second 
World War, tends to change so fast that any attempt 

at long range planning becomes extremely precarious. 
Just look at CD ROMs. Atari is just beginning to think 
very seriously of the implications of the compact disc 
facility for software for the ST. 

Through its links with Warner Communications - 
the company from which Tramiel bought control of 

Atari - it could soon have a plentiful supply of CD 

ROMs. For Warners are currently building a plant to 
manufacture the revolutionary discs. 

Now -according to The Sunday Times -compact 
discs may be about to become obsolete through a 
breakthrough in audio cassette technology known 
as digital audio tape. 

It is not surprising 1o discover that it is the 
Japanese who are behind all this. OAT apparently 
aims to do for tape what compact discs have done 
for records - and threaten to do for software. 

The data retrieval concept of the CD ROM is in 
itself revolutionary. This takes advantage o-f the 
sophisticated digital storage and retrieval technology 
developed for compact audio discs, using it for stOritt g 
text or statistics. 

In the CD interactive version proposed recently by 
Sony and Philips, the text can be intermingled with 
diagrams or with still or moving photographs. The CD 

ROM player, very similar in size and appearance to an 
audio compact disc player, can selectively take 
material off the disc and present it on the monitor 
screen. 

Researchers suggest there will be a strong demand 
in the area of reference works, particularly where the 
CD ROM can provide audio effects and pictures. 
Currently CD ROM players can cost anywhere from 
$700 to S2200 but it is expected that prices will soon 
fall to $500, then slump to around $250. 

Meanwhile, back in the DAT camp, its supporters 
are eagerly pointing out its potential for adaptation as 
a computer memory, With the advantage of small 
size, reasonable access time and a vast capacity of 
three bi llion characters of text- its storage potential is 
much greater than compact discs. 

Still, the one consolation for compact disc 
ma nufa cturers - and there are a lot of them about - is 
that there will be no further major developments in 
audio thanks to DAT untrl silicon chips can match its ' 
storage capacity and small size. 



• Atari ST User August 1986 




ATTENTION! ATARI ST' OWNERS 



A.S.S. LASER PACK 

INCLUDES: LASER BASE + ADDRESS BOOK * DIARY 

+ DATABASE 

NORMAL RETAIL £179.80 



'who can offer you more? 9 



A.S.S. PRICE £129.95 



SAVE £50.00 



A.S.S. SUMMER SPECIAL 

ASS 520STM PACK 1 : NORM AL PRIC E: e546.00 
(Inc. 520STM. SF354 1 12 meg drive) 

ASS 520STM PACK 2: NORM AL PRICE: £846.00 
(Inc. 520STM, 2 x SF354 1 /2 meg drives + Mono Monitor) 

ASS520STM PACK 3: NORMAL PRICE: £996.00 
(Inc. 520STM, 2 x SF354, CMM3651 2 Col. Monitor) 

ASS520STMPACK4:NORMiAL PRICE: £1045.00 

(Inc. 520STM, 2 x SF354. Mono Monitor. SMM804 Dot Matrix Printer) 

A.S.S. are possibly the premier supplier of 'ST' products in the 
Our software list carries some of the best titles availabl 



ASS 



ASS 



ASS 



ASS 



PRICE:£429.95 

SAVE £118.00 

PRICE: £659.95 

SAVE £186.00 

PRICE: £799.95 
SAVE £198.00 

PRICE: £799.95 

SAVE £245.00 

UK today, 
e. 



An S.E.G.S. Company. 



WRITE or PHONE for a FREE 

CATALOGUE to; 

ACTION SOFTWARE SUPPLIES 

31 Stoneyhurst Road, 

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Tel: 021-373 7442 



+ FREE DELIVERY 
c who can offer you more?' 



PLEASE RUSH ME YOURLATEST CATALOGUE 

NAME 

ADDRESS 



iown a520/1O4QST 



Quality Language Compiler for Atari ST Programmers 




AAODULA-2/ST 



RRP: £99.95 



Modula-2/ST offers a Mac-like program editor using both mouse/menu and keyboard commands. 
Linker, Compiler and friendly GEM-illustrated manual. 

It has the best "jump to compile & for feature" yet seen by Bruce Webster of Byte Magazine. All 
compilation errors are stored and displayed one after another on the screen for speedy correction. 

The full GEM interface and graphics are supported and GEM software may be developed using 

windows, mice, menus and graphics. 

Modula-2 is the logical development of the Pascal language (Pascal programmers will only take a 
few days to adjust). Modula-2/ST is a highly productive language producing fast, quality, 32-bit 

standalone code. 

"A fine exampfe of what a good language should be" and "a good way to move away from DRI'sC'is 
the way Sol Guber describes Modula-2/STin Atari User. 

To fully exploit the potential of Modula-2/ST, we recommend a minimum configuration of 1MByte disk 
storage and the purchase of any of the recently published books on programming with GEM. 



Modute'2/ST is available from tire following distributors: 

■Gfdynftatter. i PfiQQ MeadO*. AshburlOrt, Cevfln T013 7DF Tel: 0364-53499 • Silica Distribution Ltd, 1-4 The Msws. Halher-By R&ad. Sidcup, Ke rt * 
DAiaaDX L Tel 01-309-1111 • SilconCenl'e.7AniigiaSlfee).Ect'nbu'Sh.ScolJar ( aTel' 031-557-55^6 • Silicon Centre. Una 16. AnderstonCentte. 

Glasgow Q2 7PH TtH: 041226-53(16 • Software Expiess. 5146 Alum Rock Road- Alum Hock. Birm-nghBm B8 3HX. UK Teh 021-328-3585 
New Wo'*c Computers. B'uunsb'o 9, 8000 Aa'hus Central. Denmark Tel: 045-61S-313O • M<ao-ApptfcaM>ns. 13 Rue Sainje Cec^e. 75009 Paris. 
Fiance Tel:0i4>?rO3244 • EutehaDaiaAS.0siensjOtfeiBM39B.N.0O67O&o6.Wofrtay Ter0472.659U65?2/652i • Umvefsat Electronics APL. 

PO Box 215*. Al Khobar 31952, Saudi Arabia- Tel. 096G3-89B-20B1 • Sama Elecworrcs AC. Bahnholst'asse 7, 5400 Baden. Switzerland. 
Tel; 041-56-211422 • Atari |:Benel\«f BV, Hagenweg 7 B. V'afien, The NeihertgncS Tgl C«34-72i©44 • Pharrn-a Pa.ck International, 
Aiar< ST Software Dept. Van Gtjnsiraot ii. 2288 GA flijswtjk. The Netherlands Tel r>70-9062?4 • Gerhard Knupo Gm&h. Guntherstrasse 75. 
46000 Dortmund 1. West Germany, Tel 049-231-52803 

For further information please contact. Jane Parkhouse at 
Modula-2 Software Ltd, 29 Alma Vale Road, Bristol 8S8 2HL, 
Tel: 0272-742796. Telex: 449273 



MODULA-2 SOFTWARE LTD 
For quality software 




-August 193$ A'er' ST User. 



AST 



ST works 
out the 
cheapest 



THIS month I'd thought I'd start by telling 
you that the ST is really the cheapest 
computer in the Atari range. Figure I shows 
a comparison of cost per k in pounds. I've 
taken the minimum system as the computer 
and one disc drive, but no monitor, since the 
8 bit computers con use a TV while not all of 
the ST range have this ability. 

The Atari 2O80ST is likely to be announced 
and released before Christmas and will have 2mb 
of memory. I've estimated the cost of the 2080 
at around £1.150 without a monitor. The 
difference in cost between the 2080 and 1 040 is 
likely to be greater than that between the 1 040 
and 520 because 1 mb chips are more expensive 
than the 256k chips used in the 520 and 1 040. 

As you can see from Figure I, the ST range is 
cheapest, and getting cheaper all the time. In 
comparison, the Commodore 64 would have a 
price perk value of £6.25. You can work out the 
value yourself for other home computers. 

Coding capers 

I HAVE had several letters this last couple of 
months that suggest that some of you are losing 
your way among the ever increasing number of 
code numbers that Atari chooses to attach to 
their new products. As a help through this jungle, 
here is a rough and ready guide to the Atari ST 
range: 

520ST: The original ST, now out of production. 
Dealers are likely to start discounting their 
remaining stocks. 

520STM: The new base machine. Same as the 
520ST, but with a modulator that allows the 
computer to be used with a television rather than 
a monitor. Both low and medium resolutions are 
allowed on a TV. but medium is almost 
unreadable. The original STs might be able to be 
upgraded to allow use with a TV, but only from 
third party manufactures. Its £399 price tag does 
not include a disc drive, which is essential and 
therefore will add another £150 to the price. 
1 040STF: A 1 mb ST with a built-in double sided 
disc drive (hence the F). No modulator means it 



cannot be used with a TV. See the June issue of 

Atari ST User for ihe advantages of 1 mb. Other 

than the larger memory, the 1 040 offers nothing 

that the other models do not have. It will run all 

software written for the Other models, but some 

software written for the 1040 (and the extra 

memory) will n ot run with only 5 1 2 k. If you have 

your 5 1 2k ST upgraded to 1 mb you will be able 

to run all 1 040 software. 

SF354: A single sided 360k disc drive 

(sometimes advertised as 500k r butonly3S0kis 

useable). 

SF314: A double sided 720k disc drive 

(sometimes advertised as 1 Mb or 1 000k). Holds 

double the amount of the SF354, but can still 

read single sided discs. The SF354 cannot use 

discs from the SF314. 

SM124: The ST high resolution black and white 

monitor. Only allows the use of high resolution 

mode. 

SC1424: The colour monitor. Allows the use of 

low and medium modes. Only one monitor may 

be attached at any one time. 

SH204; The soon to be available 20mb hard 

disc from Atari. To cost around E850. 

The range is growing every day, but I'll try to 
keep you updated. If you see a + sign after the 
name of a 520ST or 520STM, it means that it 
has been upgraded to 1 mb. You should note that 
the 1040ST cannot be upgraded beyond 1mb 
without drastic surgery. 

• * * 

I've had several requests for information 
regarding packages for the ST from people who 
want to do serious graphics work such as CAD 
(Computer aided design}. Very few such 
packages are so far available for the ST. although 




Send your 
Atari ST 
queries to: 
ANDREW 
BENNETT, 
Atari ST User, 
Europa House, 
68 Chester Road, 
Hazel Grove, 
Stockport 
SK7 5NY. 



£/k 



Price/Hemory Comparison 



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8BSXL 1JBXE 5ZBST 5Z8STH 1B4B ZB8BI?) 

Atari Conputers 







Figure I 
I tori ST User August 1986 . 



AST 




its graphics capabilities would seem to ideal for 
such uses. 

The packages cover a vast range in price from 
DEGAS at £19.95 to Graphics Artist at E495. 
The only solution is to have a demonstration at 
your local dealer to see if a particular product will 
meet your requirements. One new program that 
may be of use to some of you is the latest from 
the keyboard of Tom Hudson, the author of 
Degas. It is catted CAD 3D and will be marketed 
by Antic. It should be available from Silica Shop 
by the time that you read this. 

• * * 



out more about the STorindeedany other micro 
than the SBC! 



I'm glad to see that so many of you agree with 
my comments about the BBC's Micro Live 
programme. From what I can tell, the BBC 
regards Micro Live as an innovation programme. 
They seem to have lost their way somewhat by 
sticking to the BBC Micro over most other 
micros. 

Perhaps we ought to watch Channel 4's 4 
Computer Buffs when it returns if we want to find 



• If you have been using a 520ST and you 
switch to the 1040 or 1mb of memory, you 
will notice that programs take very slightly 
longer to execute and that the 7040 takes 
longer to boot up then a 520. This is because 
the 68000 processor inside th e ST has to do a 
little more work when a program loads fnto 
1mb than in to 512k, The delay is nothing to 
worry about and is only really noticeable if you 
have been used to usinga512kST. 

• If you are desperate to use low resolution 
and have only a mono monitor, don't buy a 
colour monitor Just yet. Several companies are 
working furiously to build modulator at- 
tachments for the ST, but they won't be 
cheap, I've heard mention of prices in the £75 
range. Cheaper than a monitor perhaps, but 
you won't be able to use medium resolution 
because it is unreadable on a TV. 



Useful book 
despite the 



SOUVD 
GRAPHICS 

ONTH£ ATARl" ? 



r 




f 



ing 



Introduction to Sound and Graphics on the 
Atari ST by Tim Knight (Compute! Books) 



THE latest offering from Compute! - whose 
books have long been known to Atari users for 
their good quality and co mprehensiveness - i s 
for the ST. 

Sound and Graphics covers Logo, Basic 
and Forth. In seven chapters and 1 94 pages it 
takes each language in turn, examining their 
use of sound and graphics. 

The book begins with the now obligatory 
section on setting up the ST. This can only be 
of use to the reader who buys the book at the 
same time as his machine and finds that he 
needs more help than is given in the ST's 
manual to get his machine up and running. 



.?***,< 



*«***,' 



& mmm 



The book then examines programming in 
Basic. Logo and Forth, giving plenty of clear 
examples and smoothing over some of the 
rougher patches in the Atari manuals. The 
chapter on advanced graphics gives informa- 
tion on various VDI and AES routines for 
achieving some tasks that aren't possible from 
ST Basic, such as examining the position of 
the mouse and the condition of its buttons. 

The final chapter gives short reviews of 
some ST software that has most interested 
the author- This and the first chapter, can be 
regarded as nothing but padding, which is the 
last thing that this helpful book needs. 
Nevertheless its information is presented in a 
clear and helpful way, with plenty of 
examples, and it is heartly recommended. I 
look forward to other productions for the ST 
from Compute! 



\ \ - 1 •*- -"7" ' '■*' 




ATARI 







FREE SOFTWARE 

Wren yc*j buy onv of |n t> """» * ,B ^ ST computers trcnti S-iica 
Shoo, you -iilrccoiv* a U'94 and »s(i*3 4.ai-arfl eflc*4l» tree 
of charge TftO package covers sows) appdc-ai'Ons and corrs- 
Dfrses a lota' o< nine .HUbs. All S.t~s now haie TOS'GEM on 
ROM.anOtneiolallisl oHn» loflwans is as f osovrti 
1}6EM ■OR&&ttopeO'>ifO'>>7Wil*aJ7\ViMP{t>>RQit) 

2 ) 70S -> r«m.# Opmwg tytm lm RQ>J) 
3Jl»IWOHO- Wort Processor Dy GST using ttwGEU 

eGvirOna&fitaMrBulspte wndovrs 
« ) BASl£ - Personal Basic by W M 1 /. manurf) 
5 } LOGO - Logo iat)guig# oy Dft (wrto inwiwff 
fi) OOODLE - Stop** rw/ifr&iwW 6r*w)ng pacAaga f»6/*s cv> 

7_) MEGAROIDS •AsfefoXts type game DyMtgvnox 

8) NE0CH80ME • AfiomftoamrpiWiniigtiphkii 
ptciffoe (oaty usoaele wtffi cotovr system} 

9 ) CP/U EMULATOR - AU&us tne t/W o' OHi 260 C-PW J07V- 
wan» toiunonaiy STsyst&o 

3rd PARTY SUPPORT 

Tis porter ana poienkal ort (tie ST range o' cornpulots it 
c*u*no j ' ooa of new soijwate intes. oe-npheriils ana accees- 
orles fTo-m ihifd party rnamiiBetuiers Tnte* range (torn word 
processing (otpfwdaheeiprograme. (roei jfapfirci end games 
15 o>!apn*e metageiwpi - all »rtft Unose easy drop-down roetws 
and wineows. Win the list of companies producing ST sc-twaro 
including rjoicni of lap names, you can expect son* 'i'S! class 
litHjs (or ine near sr range. Trw wonina \ nciuoos n soiseticn gf 
ih-o third party menu (acium'S wno fia»e dei«lopoO. or aio work- 
ing on. p roducu lor in e ST range: 



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UfW 5S3K ?5*BT.U KEVBOAHO:. Th« n» SSOST-M kcraooid 

coM« only (3*0 M (*VAT-CM9) i'^ In yal-anotn«i C«lC« tiino"- 

trproiiah ri» *;ori Cocpo<stlcn I'm k«yt>tMrd "<>w tneluOai ben 
«n kf r-flOvWip' «ntf s»P'9. »«oy">9 you (c cof"ff*l il to i^ 

OTOiiBiy aOi"atllc (ulo-irjicin jot In nciamo". ifiw kvvEourd Ij 
>UDpllDi! tvlin SI^K RAM. ■ ■■ _■ -. u <ni3 ■ '■ -■" ■•! o) 3M~ dts<> 
tonlaintno «oe>'iC«itO"l »MI»Are. Trio IOB CMriimo afimiri 

■ noma GEM O'aolici pjeluaa *'* now sumvIIW Ofi WJKROKi 
cMpi ""iicn «■» i»*»ay t(is»»»»d -1 (n* (.ojooora. Tl\it munt 

IPiai (n« opBrfciirifl lyilim -will euIomaliCBliy Iwot W wt>on yot» 
kWiien mo po*«' on. In median SO »:■ X-yoO«rO ( yau wilt alia 

nona to pu-cn»« c(ir>e? a n-MDy" a'»* a'rto (finl> f i30>V*I) oi 

■ iMovnooit" drweCBP £ i««VAT). Sintr om a-.bo wm pro- 
•■We W" "J 1 " '■** tn*o*nia*taw reiriaval «T¥1 d v«ii amotinl or 
iiomo" ]p«c« K fou tK*!» not to imo your cwm IV mil you 

m»y .connect you( ST lo a monitor Yon rnay miictuu* Hi* 1'fl 

SMif4 monoCiran"* inonliot (PUP Ci30*VATi. « on« ol aib>(» 
two Tnonwan cfl'oii' moniiixs. Aiteroauvety. y'Ou miky. doosi 
onn o'thn many «it>ol cany eciouf moortoi(» wnroi «<e malmolo 

NIW IQ38M 330ST.M- K6VBOARD: In aOtlillon is inn tionoaia 

S20ET-M. — p jisie ft ne« Koyboara »ftlrri ■«« «<t coHing in» 
Aian WC3T-M-. Tnu ■*• IaxSTOST-U VaytOXD "lien 1»* Ob#h 
«nnanc«<i liy • "i"Q po'ty "AH luigrsoo to i moonDyie o' 

■i .-i .■-, -.-,. -:-o^T". M- la a-aliaWa lion Sii.ca ai a imul pucu 
Of only W339I <*VAT*£49S). i Tiiit pfOOHiCI will D"OviO« yOUwHll 
Bn slte'nalna lo Wo I040CT-F. Dot Dla lowof pnee. Aaa'il"">ii, 
iBluriD Ih« ■d'antnaa ol ■!>• MOSI-U- ttnili lr> rrfladUlof. 




For in* pL-sn^iimai and 'I'o mota »'ioui noma UHI AI 

!•■»« tnirogutw me 10*03T- F . ■ tow cqsi powornovBP wMCi 

can M lntio«uc~l to a ou>"n*M o*iv"on (nam ■• a »!dnn-*loi* 
cyale'n. ar can nuppo"! a mn'ndaitua cbAitiuia-- •• • liriTilnttl I no 

ner/ on* mpgooyic tO*09T- f i^i-.»r-:n5 aicvi 'uaiuc lor mon©/ 
ropuuilon in ttw nurte;pAac» as ii fi Hut fir*' pnrsona< <ompui-r 
avBiUDIo — itn ons i^foaoyt"* o' iremo<v *or 'o"i man ceoo *0u 

Can purcliA» in- I040ST-F a< a monocn'oma of colon' »y«'.»m 
Ti's (nit* at ilia f-ir.'iiichrii-iiu lyatam la s?M (>VAT » CQI&85) 

viiin irio colour sulem atority tee9 (-VAT • C't40CS>. tti«n«" 
1 0tOST-F not Only (aaiutcc Iwtce an raucri rnamoiy ai im 
SJOST-M. but Wbo mcinO«t a ona- maonDyio oouoio mooa din* 
<Jm* and mmnt tranalormer. ootn Don: Into tne- coo.otr. lo ol* 

tomonct arri aiyiiah uml wi:n on:. Ona malnl IM rna. 

icjQt-v ,t aito luupiiou wttn a fioa aoliwaiD Dxctago. untifco 
!«• S?OST'M. ttw lOaOST>f van inanulactu'nO solely wilb bu) 
ceil use in mind and n* *Ueh Id ouppllod viiVn a monitor. It doo* 

iol ifniue- Ilia RF m OdMlatDi or l«ad We> nc— : nava atoct of ins 
1 GJ09T-F at all tour bionctmi on Silica Snop. Call into ye>u' 

i^atcai Ofar-cni ior a aamonauanon. 

»-a Th. Mawa, HalHaivay -,-.n,d. Sldcup, Kent. OA1« *OX 

tir Orplnjlo^ H19H BKaei. Oiplmoton, Kant. OB* OLQ 

Lion Hdum ( 1 it 1-r.i.r, 32T TruiaKnani Couit Ra. London. Wl 

Sell'lfloea (In! IloOtJ, O«tord 61 reel. LOfldon, W1A 1AB 




THE ATARI EXPLOSION! 



II you «o*0 the ipec*aial compute' o<n>. »ao will n«** noilael Dial Inst o 
4 one Eompany M«nl> wtuio * latae lllct ot oooo'ial neace »i cne 
■in. -,,r>' ■ 'i.ii compaBy la AUri &>iEoraiiori Atari Pi>n -•"-" "laalng inB 
nowiUncetne launch ol (nee new 16V-W bit tana* of ST cumpuw* Led 
oy me ponertul rigiire of J*e» Tfimlel and undei tn* oannir Fo-m 
Vi'iHic*! Tne Price'. Am) tit ninueaCturlng new compuieni a! unliaaid ol 
DtiCO*. wilntn* DOwa' tncnaiiango t«rtyMUbltjnedme>VelleaK>VB "*'"< 
tne iniroaurtiDi- ol IBM comp»tib*iy. a CP/M emuynor-. e ocn-erloi nei- 
•oiklnpnyile-nand aeomrt^ic*liwe p«Ma* )« ln*f-MwlflWe«t 
po«B<fH>jiw. i| Ooot.it lOOW ei 11 ii -hi Do long bolero mere la an 
eiOloalonol trie maotwtoBc* which will tee Atari ola cod Nmy bnldei M>cli 
name! as IBM ane OitveiB m lite Benonal cemout« mertfiDljM. Reeo on 
lor more oetailio! wnat Alan er» dolno. and no* iney «-a punmg their 
Power Wthout The Pn<«' computem Doyor*d Ina roach ol tr>e comp«tiilc"L 

FREE CP/M EMULATOR 

Tnit newly UtnoucM CPrV Emulation Pooagn. win enaole wti-a-s 
minen- anoer 0>aluf Paoarcfii ZW C.'ril opefalina (yitern 10 be run pn 
(he ST tem-fc ot eomputern. Thmo at uxvtl 'noutard oppieatio™ 
• •nil" lot CP/M In il"* UK alone, a-n J aaiarai ot Wo major CP.'.I &orti>a(o 
n^vavcftient lioviea may convert Iheir programs to 3>i" dlW format liv 

UieST r»iflo TtioCP./Moniutal^niMC'otjT^SupliliL'ClFiieE ()F Cr'ABCt 

0» Silica Snopi with aft ST co mouteta. 

IBM COMPATIBILITY 

To ma«a ine ST *'e«aWe 10 thoae Ouiitaiaei -no cn'ientv run IBM 
tyiterii end J'e looting lor a low cod eipannUOn method. Alan nara 
anrwunoed a co-eroceMoxj uml io» ST eOmfiutei. Tfcti CoeSMA' *nll 
open Ire S' range to an iBUot iGU compaiJils lottwue applifailoni The 
unit. •«t™c'i euasn** to ine ST comoutera via ir.e OWA (Oireel Uemcfy 
AecetEt pon. <or.t>int an ir-»i 908a praetJior wtft 41K b' HAM and anil 
■coepi a 3vl- do* arivo. In hi ST mooa ine ufut win etio oil ai a teco«id 
rw d'ne. otl«rlng the gset in add>t>anii !00« or momory. Tne IBM co- 
pnxaiintf •jn'isnoo'iO»a»a»alWi"liilc Sunvnet '8W llyouaioul<ll(He 
u> Bo inlormect when It a fBie*M0 . aiiBeto comploce and r nluro in* cou&on 
'■-.,- wa will »*no you luronet deiolla aa aooo as we ham mem 

20Mbytm HARD DISK £730 

The new Alan herd Oiw lor lie ST iinog n»i |t>al been re<**aM. All 5T 
CCtotrttfl iVWiv ''Brt 1 "S'fl fli(*- in|f"a<of l)yli F iio theot no iheie l> no, 
eiier-a" -ni«Ta<* (SQuiied Tno mnmcy alio ot Vn me* a a masjive 10 
mooaD.m lur.lorma-itooi w-th a Oata tran»ler rat* Ol i XI Mo,i°* P** 
atconcl AI a prite ot IfM (-VAT'CaUSI tna5trTiarddl»tiononma»»lns 
ltwago wii'i Uii acceuata very le-UDnabte price. 

NEW ST SOFTWARE PACKAGES 

Tnetearo nw> iiuntlred" o' ao'iwata puijoei "hl-.h han been announ- 
ced W ine Alan BT rnno*. TIOm ef*faOie «ow maude DD Man j DBaa* J 
CionoaiwollajiiaDBaie. aD0o«Vdone. InedOiiOn. PC tntarcoftirn 1> 
a VTl » -,-. ^n ' ;i i »'.i eml b!« yOj la ui4 any ST keyBtMrrj » a terminal 
ccnnectaO to « mtiitrame or mini. Other program! incline a LoiuB i-c-3 
clone | aec r ■ j ' ■■:■". : ■ betow) 

WP PROFESSIONAL - (.Or/JS *-J?-3~ CLONE 

T\H I* piobalitytnef-iOiitimpreiUfeproflrjm to liaieoeein folaaied no tar 
Wf mo ST unoc VIP Proteswonat a an eatrewh/ ee*[ 10 tea. imoaraioa 

Mfosflihee - - aatabeso ano grapnici orogtim wFtien o ■■mkji tiotn in 
feaiuiai.ana comminai to toiui i -J-3". Tne Bameaproadettoe*. ana'ista. 
intprmatlan management erxi eitraunnntry buainfAa gtapiuca are ail com- 
btriw in ana oaay to leam. »fl>itiJa»>» pacaaoe Whaia -wre. ViP Ptoiea- 
S>q««i nol uniy haa aM the (ajturon ot l-M, joj tan alio type- the ien>» 
commands to oo tne wrw thvios PtObawy the ntoil turpcalng leoniroor 
VIP "i,'r'ii;.-iM It not Hi ""'■■' '".."■■;■:: um ■ witn Lolut >-i-3". nor tit 
ihU* >l ute fiul IU once, lotut 1.73- ror the IBM PC/AT ectii (3M 
('VAi-£-tfr4isi -nomat Vip Pnyietaionat lot in* ST- a ■ men ti» 
iWAT-EtW 55l TmiSlflu than had the pr-cei F) you would liko further 
■"■"■ ■' ■ ' i ol VIP Pio'nCTitwui pleaio rot urn the coupon Below 





SJiJB.VSiJDP 

WE ARE THE UK's Hoi ATARI SPECIALISTS 

Ai Silica we have been lucceialuliy de&cated jo Alan oyer iince tn«u prod\iclt flnt apsearoo on itio UK 
mwktl. We can ■nriDuloouriLCCOSi Mnjcrt ;o we KM 8poc'ali5*iion ariir," ne practice and !o ',n« user 
Bacfc-up ■we provide. «ost atuured mat when you bury a piece ot Atari natdware at fiJilca you will be lufily 
rjpportod Out maUing4 giving n«wi of toriwaro faiouon ana Oeiqlcomonuwill keep you op to date with 
tuflrttari maKManflc-jrtccnnicaliwBcor!iBarnonfliaWS'i"eyo el If* end. oimeioiepnoneiine 10 
deal wiiii your problem.? end ;. -.-•■■■ yOur every '-.--: .v.;i- our ipcclalKt t> ' 1 wo aim ro Keep :-■-': U 
ail ine available Atari natdwire. aotiwirc. oenpheraie v& acceaaonei. Ve &'-\t> t\tx» a w>do ranpe 01 
Alan deflicated 000*1 »nd mrouflh us, ino o*-n?m 0" Cm' I'St c»n iuweibe \a javara? Amoncan Alan 
dodiceted magat'nDn. We can provide* a tuH karvice to all Atari ownarn and are now titmiv eiiabiivnod as 
tne U*'a NtJUBEB ONE Alari ipocj'-uu Here are iimieme ol the minen we can ptla> lo ou> Cvttomeea 
wFHEE POST fi PACKING ON MAIL ORDERS II you would /*»• lo be lejflnfafwd on oa.rm*ktno 



SILICA SHOP LTD, 1-4 Tho Mews, Halherley Road, SWcup, Kent, DAM flDX 

SEND FOR FREE ATARI ST LITERATURE 



A To SUicaSaoplia.CM|AItJSR0afl5.l * Ike Mevn. H*tfcrttiHoa4SiBtup. Kent OAldeD* 

f PLEASE SEND ME FREE LITERATURE 

OH THE HE* RANGE OF ATARI ST COMPUTERS 



*FftEE NEXT DAY DELIVERY 
■-INFORMATION MAILING SERVICE 
•■TECHNICAL SUPPORT TEAM 
*HIGHLV COMPETITIVE PRICES 
.AFTER SALES SUPPORT SERVICE 
REPAIR SERVICE ON ATARI PRODUCTS 



flat ;i an .■■'. ;.i.i comptriet owner, o>m a peraon 

inlemrec! n Buying an Atari macru'ne, 1*1 ua 

■ "■--. Wb wHOe pleeied lo Keep you tip to Oeie 
wlfn new Alan oVnrtopdtentt rnN at Infft. Sd. 
mfum fna coupon today and bejin »naanenciVip 
a ipeclaUif Atan Mnica met m aeconcf ID none. 



I WoMranU; . IftiUata: Surname: 

I ArJdniH: 

■■■ •■ - -"• 

• ■ ■ 

I 

«' Do you already own a computer 
■I u. wtw* on* do you own> 



-■• 



Poatcexle-. 



*>« 



The new IN' 

With a memory like 







Internal powersupply. 



Resolution: 640X400 pixel 
monochrome or 320X200 
with 16 colours, 
640X200 with 4 colours. 



TOS in ROM creates 
a workspace of ov« 
90OK bytes. 



94-kcy QWERTY keyboard 
with numeric keypad 
and cursor controls. 




Monitor: 12" high- 
resolution monochrome 
■ .or 14' colour. 



Integral 1Mb 
(uoformaiMd) 
double-sided 
3*// disk drive. 







■£__ CL £l~,JL.~.~L. £~- — il — C- — (~~ — ^— — ^-»-i 



_ 



m rnrn^^ 










,; Two-button i 
mouse. 



The price! Under Cl 
a Kb (excluding VAT}- 
including colour monitor. 



Port for mouse 
or joysticks. 



si 



An eniormous 1024K RAM plus 
a powerful Motorola 68000 
processor running at 8MH:. 



'--- : 










IbKMOSTF 

that you can be sure 



pttenathing 



The Atari 1040STF employs state of the art 16/32 bit 
technology. Yet its ptice is unbeatable. 

The ST range of computers already has a large number 
of software programmes available, including word processors, 
spreadsheets and databases, as well as a variety of programming 
languages and specialist business packages. 

The 1040STF will also run software written on several 
other popular operating systems, including CP/M. 

It has a 1024K RAM, integral 1Mb (unformatted) 
double-sided 3'// disk drive, two-button mouse and built-in 
power supply. 

The operating system is in ROM, leaving RAM free for 
applications. BASIC and LOGO programming languages 
complete the package. 

With 12" monochrome monitor, we recommend it sells 
for £799 excluding VAT saving you at least £1600 against its 
nearest rival. The price of our 14" colour system is a remarkably 
low £999 excluding VAT. 

As the American magazine 'Byte' commented, "for 
some time to come the 1040STF will be the clear leader in 
price/performance . " 

For the name of your nearest dealer, ring Teledata 
on 01-200 0200. 

And that indudes an 
unbeatable price 

AATARI 



Power Without the Price' 







AST 




^r^9 


_ The show 

■ that's 

■ worth 



seeing 
twice 




iA 







«™r packers 




«I. 067*. 




noi_ 




IE 



By Peter Fellows 

TAKE one Atari ST, one man with 
imagination, and add someone with artistic 
flair. Mix well with Degas and an A tari User 
Basic listing. Season with a tour round a 
warehouse — exciting stuff I — and a sense of 
humour. Cook for a couple of months and 
garnish with HippoArt. Result - a superb 
and professional presentation of a com- 
pany's activities for a minimum outlay. 

Clive Savigar. ST owner and director of Export 
Packers, a company dealing in freight 
forwarding, needed a method of attracting 
prospective customers to his stand at a 
forthcoming show. Slide shows can be boring 
and videos expensive, so when he saw HippoArt 
he thought: "What about a computerised slide 
sh ow?" 

We put him in touch with Kevin Bulmer, 
another ST user and an accomplished 
commercial artist. Kevin's artwork is popping up 
more and more in the computer press, and after a 
tour round their warehouse to see what freight 
forwarding was all about, he designed the 
pictures you see here. . 

Drawn with Degas, they were then converted 
to Neo format using the Basic program from a 
recent issue of Atari User. They could have been 
done with Neochrome direct, but Kevin prefers 
to work in Degas, The slides are then shown with 
HippoArt. 

The crossfades and dissolves of this program 
make a really eyecatching and professional 
display, so much so that when the graphics were 
shown on a 27in Sony television in a 
Birmingha m hi -fi showroom, the place cam e to a 
standstill! Experiment has shown that people 
almost invariably watch the show at least twice 
before moving on. 

There is nothing new about computer 
presentations, but the ST's power and speed 
make eyecatching graphics easy. Throw the 
Haba colour digitiser into the recipe above and 
stand well back — you ain't seen nothih' yet! 

Pictures drawn by Kevin Bulmer for Export Packers, 
Birmingham. 



August 1966 AtttriSTUser- 







ATARI SI 



SOFTWARE AUTHORS 

»«*», &&&$t You Rea|| y Get 

With ■ %7R^ ; The Best Dea i 

* High percentage of GROSS receipts for 
royalties. 

* Your product marketed throughout the world 
by Microdeal & their associates — 
Michtron — PSL. 

* High level PR. for your products with press 
reviews, exhibitions, WORLDWIDE, 
advertising WORLDWIDE. 

* Technical support from our own authors 
both in the U.K. & U.S.A. Why invent the 
wheel twice? 

* Hardware on loan or at subsidised price 
together with copies of ST 
magazines/books from around the world. 

When considering a publisherjor your 
Atari products — 
remember 



is No 1 
on 

roSfi h^f ELECTRONIC PVBU5HMG e 

Wfl\SVe ^ MR. J. Symes Managing Director 

*Sv^ ~ Microdeal Ltd Box 68 St Auslel1 
* >H*kVS Cornwall PL25 4YB Tel 0726 68020. 




NEXUS EPROM DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM 

The Nexus EPROM Development system Is an EPROM 
simulalor'programmtr o! enhanced capabilities. One is available now for 
ihe Atari ST range of computers. It plugs into tho cartridge port anO will 
allow you to: 

Develop ST cartridge software without ever having to program an 

EPROM. 
a Use your ST as a professional 6800O hardware development system. 
O Blow EPROMs 16 bits wide orfi bits wide (depending on target System 

architecture), 
o Manipulate dam between its 64K of EPROM simulation BAM and the 

ST*s disk drlve(s) and serial port in binary and a variety of hex 

formats. 

Of far higher specification than probably any available dedicated EPROM 
programmer/simulator, amongst the system's leatures are: 

Internal {ST) and external (target system) EPROM simulation with 64k of 
static RAM, Ihe first ever true 1 6 bit simulator/programmer, LS and MS 
EPROMs programmed simultaneously in two Zip sockets, automatic 
transparent 'split and shullle', Intelligent programming of all EPROMs Bk 
and above. SIO style GEM window on simulation RAM or EPROM(a) 
including slider, icon manipulation etc, Editt. Locate a Value. Block Move. 
Fill/Clear. Checksums. Blank check. Program Check. Automatic or 
Manual Verify. External EPROM Simulation autonomous from St 
operation, on-board Vpp generation etc. 

In the now envied Atari tradition of "Power without the Price" the cost of 
this remarkable system i& £175.00. Included m this price is the highly 
professional GEM software and extensive comprehensible manuBl. 

For iWrmy «rf your Him FPflBM D>v»fopn)«ot Sjntim by tttutt^ 
of pent, lead tf^uB.'PO fv E201.25 to toduda VAT. PSP to: 

Nexus Technical Services Limited 

38 Melrose Avenue, Reading RG6 2BN - 

Tel: <0734) 684559 

AJao milaMc: 

Sotkitri ST raitrioflti bauds to Hie font EPflOMs 8k or 4bm Itg. 4 x 2?25G = 1 28V} 

• E14.75 Inc. VAT, P&P 







August I33G Atari ST User* 



■m 



■ ■■'-■■■"- ""-.■", ■':■■■ ■"'"■ - '^ : - ■ 





COMPUTER GROUP 



BRANCH NETWORK 
THROUGHOUT THE U.K. 



LONDON 



Park House 

140 Battersea Park Road 

London 

01 627 4840 



BIRMINGHAM 



PRICE PROMISE 



il Software 



Phone now for details. 
(Subject to conditions) 



■'."■ •'.- : ■' .'■■'• 



39 Waterloo Street 
Birmingham 
021-236 7772 



m 



ABERDEEN 



41 Albeit Street 
Aberdeen 
0224 571735 



PERSONAL CALLERS WELCOME. 
MOST BRANCHES ARE OPEN PROM 
MONDAV-SATUBOW. BUT PLEASE PHONE 

BEFOREHAND TO CHECK. 



GEM Draw 

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Sorceror .,. 
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11 Bath Street 
Glasgow 
041 332 1116 



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Glasgow 

041 226 3011 



EDINBURGH 



12 Leven Street 
Edinburgh 031 228 1111 
031 228 1261 



Suspended 

Wishbfin! 

Witness 

Zork II 

Zork III 

Final Word (Word Processor) 

Hex 

Mince Editor , 

PC Intercom — VTIOO Emulator 

BBS 

Calendar .. 
Disk Help .. 
Flip Side (Reversi game) .. 

Lands of Havoc 

M/Copy 

M/Disk (RAM Disc) 

Ml/Torm IComnis Program) .......... ......... 

Michtron Utilities 

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Time Bandit 

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Fleet Street Editor 

The Twin (Lotus 1-2-3 clone) .. 

ST Toolbox 

PMUCashbook 

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Graphic Artist - 

Pro Pascal . ..,....* 

Pro Fortran 77 

Cashtrader 

Cashtrader Analyze* Module 

Atarinet 

Botfin 

Meganei -. 

Prestel Emulation . 

Print Spooler 

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Systematics General Ledger and 

Fin Plan 

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Systematic Payroll 

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Cash Manager (BOS) 

Art Gallery ,, 

Print Master , ...... 

VIP Professional 



ATARI 520 STM 9Kt 

" MAM Atar ' 52 ° ^™ CorT !p uter ' 



FAT'Tlrl 1 1 [•l"My»^»UlU=ll=«!m! 



..£39^5 FREE Epson P40, 80 column 

«495 thermal printer and cable. 

::::: SSS ^T^^worth £507.00 

.... £49.95 
..£44.95 J 



£4955 



Printers 



. £39.95 
£44.95 
£44.95 for ONLV 

. £29.95 
£19.95 

£1955 J ut< i ^OO daisywheel... 
~ £1955 Juki 6300 ■daisywheel-... 

,, E49.95 Juki 5510 NLQ dot rnalrix 

. £1255 Juki Colour kit (tor conversion o(5510).. 
- £29.95 Star SG-10 NLQ dot matrix 

£39.95 Star SG-15 NLQ dot matrix wide 

£19.95 carriage , .......... 

£12.95 star SR-1S NLQ dot matrix wide 

£29.95 carriage ......»...>■•«-. 

55? Star NL-tO NLO dol matrix 

fffr Star NB-15 24 pin dot matrix v . 

J^b- Canon PWtQSQA NLQ dot matrix 



£2995 



Canon PWI166A NLO dot matrix wide 



£245 00 carnage - 

£495 00 Canon PJ , 080A NLO dot matrix colour 

£148 35 Epson LX80 NLO dot matrix 

Et4ffiH Epson FX85+ NLQ dot matrix 

£11455 Epson FX105+ NLO dot matrix wide 
,. £57.44 carriage .... 

£552.00 Epson LQ800 S4 pin NLQ 

£109.25 Epson LQ10O0 24 pm NLQ wide 

£690.00 carriage 

... T.B.C. Epson LQ15O0 24 ptn NLQ do! matrix . 

. £25.00 

. £49.95 p| ease contact us tor Printer Options. 

£517.50 | 

£287.50 
£287.50 

£287.50 35" 500K ST disc drive - 

£345.00 -ic- ffimK ST rilcr: ilriun 



£239.95 
. £799.00 

£209.00 
. £10955 

£229,00 

£369.00 

£589.00 
£25B.0O 
£995.00 
£289.00 

£399.00 

£499.00 
£239.00 
£399.00 

£599.00 
. £795.00 

E1099.00 
£1095.00 



Peripherals 



£345.00 



.. £149.00 
.. £199.00 



£345.00 -jg" Hjg|, res ST monochrome monitor . £149.00 
E402.50 ia" Uodii itn roc ST mini n manilnr £389.00 



•■• ' ........ 

.. .1.11 1l-"IFll- 



1 Books 



„ £389.00 
.. £19959 

. £299.99 
..£977.50 
. £1150.00 
....£5750 

EB.95 



Atari ST Graphics and Sound , 

Atari ST Internals . 

Atari ST Logo 

Atari ST Machine Language 

Presenting the- Atari ST 

Anatomy of Atari ST 

Atari ST Tricks and Tips . 

Basic ot Atari ST 

First Atari ST Book 

GEM on the Atari ST ...... 

Atari ST Basic — Book 1 .... 

Using ST Logo on Atari 

Atari ST Explored 



£402.50 ]4 .. Medium res ST colour monitor £389.00 

£575.00 14- Rdelily CM14 colour monitor £199.99 

£29.95 14 « Fidelity CTM colour monitor/TV £29999 

£39.95 io Mb hard disc drive C977.50 

£194.35 go Mb ha*d disc drive £1150.00 

Serial port £57.50 

Disc drive cover tor ST ,. £695 

I Keyboard cover lor ST £855 

.. £19.95 B/W monitor cover for ST £955 

.. £1955 Monitor stand £29.95 

. £1955 Primer stand .,„ £24.95 

.. £1955 

..£1455 I 
..£1255 

...£9.95 I 

.... £9.95 Sony 35" single sided (box o* 10) £32.00 

.... £8.95 Sony 35" double sided (box ot 10) £50.00 

..£12.95 Atari printer cable £29.95 

....£5.95 Centronics printer cable £1955 

.... ES.95 MonitorcablQ £19.95 

.... £855 RS232cable £19.95 



Discs and Cables 




^ Sk infill I k S<9K0 



COMPUTER GROUP 



BRANCH NETWORK NATIONWIDE 




OFFER 



ATARI 1040ST 
SYSTEM With 
Monochrome Monitor, 
Juki 6100 Daisywheel 
Printer . ' 

and Cable 




WORTH £1337.00 F0R0NLY £999.00 



I 'I 



INC. VAT 




OFFER 



ATARI 1040ST 
SYSTEM 

' With Colour 
Monitor. Juki 6100 ^ 

Daisywheel Printer and Cable 




WORTH £1576.00 FOR ONLY £12U9.00 



^1" 



INC. VAT 



OFFER 



ATARI 520STM 
5O0 K Disc Drive 
and Philips 
TV Monitor 




WORTH £810.00 FOR ONLY £699.00 



. has H99 m JUKI SIOD ptmtoi 
1' bootjhl «iif« o Be« 3 OtVf 



INC. VAT 



| How to Order 



Orders by post welcomed: please mail coupon 
with payment. 

Telephone orders welcome: call 01-627 4840 
(London) or 021-236 7772 (Birmingham) or 

031-228 1111 (Edinburgh) or 041-332 1116 

We also welcome Government and Educational 

orders. 

All products supplied include our own 12 

months guarantee bached by our own service 

cent re staffed by fully qualified engineers. 

Order wil h confidence, 7 days money back 

guarantee. 

All charges Include VAT and carriage charges 

by courier. Dealer enquiries and personal 

callers welcome. All offers slated here are 

available through any of Microworld's SO 

dealers nationwide. 

The right is reserved to alter prices without 

prior notice. 

All items subject to availability. E6.0E 



MAIL ORDER 



To: MicwwortdDstriQutton, B«pt. ATU. Pane House. 140 BaiieiSOaPart Road, London SW11 
01-627 4B40 or alternatively 39 Waterloo Street, Birmingham 021-236 7772. 



pfoaso sooci me 



P I enclose a cheque for £ payable to Microworid Computer Systems Ltd- 

Zj Please debit my AccessA'is&'Amefican Express Account 



No 



Signed 



Name 



Adaress 










Intot , 
gear for 

an arcade 
spectacular 




On the foac j fa Ma ; or Mo1hfr 



Reviewed 
by Andre 
Willey 



Program: Major Motion 
Price: £19.95 

Supplier: Microdeal, 41 Truro Road. St. Austell, 
Cornwall. Tel: 0726 68020 



IF you've aver played the arcade game Spy 
Hunter, you'll know what Major Motion is 
like. You play the part of a secret agent, 
driving a super powered racing car with all 
sorts of fantastic gadgets on board. 

imagine a cross between a James Bond car 
chase and Knight Rider, and you won't be far off. 
As you drop down the ramp from the supply 
truck, the battle commences. 

You see the road as a plan view from above, 
rather than the pole position style windscreen 
view, and your task is to destroy the enemy 
Draconian vehicles, but not to harm any civilian 
cars. 

To do this your car has bu ill in machine-guns, 
but then the enemy also have some armoured 
cars, which: are completely bullet proof. To 
destroy these you must ram them from the side 
until they crash into the verge. 

Luckily for you, your company is busy 
developing enhancements for your super-car, 
and as the game progresses you can get more 




equipment from the supply truck. These items 
Include ground-to-air missiles (to attack enemy 
helicopters), oil and smoke-screen generators to 
hamper vehicles chasing you, a sonic boom 
device to drive other cars off the road, and a turbo 
thrust to leave the Draconians standing. 

Each device is controlled from the keyboard, 
which you can customise to your own 
requirements. 

Unfortunately if you crash, or are smashed off 
the road, you've got to re-supply your brand new 
car. As the game progresses you will have to 
negotiate icy roads and twisty bends, meet 
Batman and The Evil Twin — a prototype of your 
own car, and armed as you are - and even 
change to speedboats for a fast race up the 
rapids. You may even see Ram bo I 

The colour graphics (you do need a colour 
monitor) are spectacular, well up to arcade 
standards, and really do justice to the machine. 
The main title screen involves some 3D text 
rotation which is out of this world. The sound 
effects are quite good, although a little 
infrequent, with long periods with no sou nd at all. 

The background music adds the final touch to 
the game, with the Mission Impossible and 
Batman themes setting the scene. 

My only criticism of this otherwise excellent 
game is that there is no Joystick option. The 
mouse may be useful for selecting files, but it is 
not really the best way to drive a car. 

Most ST owners have joysticks as wel I as their 
mouse, so It seems a shame to spoil an otherwise 
fantastic game when the extra programming 
would be so negligible. 

Even so, I still found the game very addictive, 
and recommend it to any ST owner who wants a 
decent arcade game to while, away those 
midnight hours. 



Sound; „ „...„.... 8 

Graphics: .,.....'.... 10 

Payability: 7 

VbJuo: , 9 

Overall: .„. ...*.... ....................9 



E- 



.August 1386 Atari ST User . 



AST 



Product: Essex 

Price: £39.95 

Supplier: Synapse and Broderbund, c/o Software 
Express, 514-516 Alum Rock Road, Ahim 
Rock, Birmingham 88 3HX. Tel: 021-328 
3585 



IN the magnetic disc that carries Essex 
there lurks an adventure game with a 
diff era nee, an electronic novel. To quote 
Synapse and Broderbund: "An electronic 
novel picks up where the printed word 
leaves off . . . we have discovered a 
remarkable new entertainment 
experience". 

The program, disc is packaged very insecurely 
inside the back cover of a hardback book. Its first 
chapters introduce the major characters, set the 
scene and lead into the adventure proper. Ninety 
five pages of introduction might put even the 
hardened adventurer off. but wait, what's this? 
There are only 35 pages of text, the rest being left 
blank for your own notes, some hidden 
instructions on page 89, and advertising for other 
"novels". 

The book is a bit of a rip-off. Apart from setting 
the scene., which could just as easily have been 
done in the program, and justifying the title 
electronic novel, its main purpose seems to be as 
a security device for the game. Before you can 
start y° u are asked to type in a word from a 
certain page and line, the exact details of which 
change with each program boot. If you get the 
word right you can continue. If not. the program 
stops. It would be a commendable anti-piracy 
idea if only photocopying hadn't been invented. 

The action in Essex takes place on board a 
colossal starship of the same name. Hideous 
Vollchon battle machines once more threaten 
the galaxy (what, you don't remember the last 
time? I. Professor Klein has to be rescued and 
only Captain Dee of the Essex can do it in time. 

You have to deliver secret papers to the 
elusive captain which, it is hoped, will convince 
him to help civilisation. You board a shuttle with 
various other people, including a midget with an 
inferiority complex, and a walking, almost talking 
lobster. These characters wander around the 
ship on a guided tour, generally getting in your 
way and saying silly things at inappropriate 
moments. 

The game has a very sophisticated parser, and 
allows complex multiple word inputs, You can 
talk to anyone on the ship — crew members, 
fellow tourists, auto lifts and even your 
equipment - but little seams to help. Time is 
short, and you only have a limited amount of it 
before everything goes up in smoke. 

Essex is intriguing, and difficult. I haven't 
managed to do anything except get thrown into 
the brig for impersonating an officer, let alone 
save the universe. 

One gets the feeling that the other characters 
are wandering around independently, and that 



A novel idea 
for starship 
experience 

you really are on a working ship. Things happen 
around you, voices scream over the intercom, 
security guards stop people and search them. On 
top of all of this, the ship falls to bits. 

Usefully, Synapse thought to include a time 
slow command, which slows the rate at which 
these disturbing events happen, and a save game 
option for those of us who need to cheat fate on a 
regular basis. 

Essex's screen display is divided into two 




sections. The upper is the result of your actions 
and a commentary on events, the lower your 
input screen. It looks a bit boring at first, but the 
descriptions and continuous frantic action make 
.up for the lack of imagination in its presentation. 
Whether Essex is a remarkable new enter- 
tainment experience is doubtful. That it is 
remarkable is true. The game is a very different 
adventure, with abstract problem solving played 
down and interaction with people brought to the 
forefront. If you hate crowds, forget it. 



Sound Not applicable 

Graphics NotappJicable 

Payability 8 

Value for money ...................... .,...,..,.,.... 8 

OverafJ 8, 






Reviewed 
by Jason 
Kingsley 



. August t9ae Atari ST User. 





SOFTWARE 

EXPRESSIIIII 



A 



COMPUTER SYSTEMS LTD. 



Desk File View Retai 



Mail 



BUSINESS 



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H 8. D BASE RELATIONAL DATABASE WITH BUILT 

IN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE & GEM SUPPORT 

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P CVlNTERcOM - VT1.00 EMULATOR 

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DOS SHELL - MS-DOS COMMAND EMULATOR 



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ENTERTAINMENT Sj 



ACTIVISIO.N MUSIC STUDIO - SOUND CHIP OR 

•MIDI. VOU ARE THE COMPOSER £29.9 5 

?RiNT MASTER - OVER 1O0 GRAPHICS, BORDERS 

& FONTS. PRINT LETTERHEADS. CARDS. BANNERS 

A SIGNS £39.95 

PRINT MASTER ART GALLERY I - OVER 100 EXTRA 

PICTURES FOR USE WITH PRINT MAS-TEH £29.95 



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GAMES 



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TIMEBANDIT- MULTISCREEN ARCADEGAME f29.95 
THE PAWN - ADVENTURE GAME WITH STUNNING 

GRAPHICS £24.95 

MAJOR MOTION- FAST-ACTION CAR CHASE £19.95 

tiOLDRUKNER - 50 SCR EEN LODE RUNNER £1 9 95 

SUNDOG - ZOOM- ACTION' ADVENTUflE £29.95 



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EASY DRAW - VERSATILE CAD PACKAGE £1 49.95 

HIPPOPiXEL - SPRITE & FONT EDITOR WITH 

ANIMATION £39.35 

DEGAS — FULL FEATURE GRAPHICS PACKAGE FOR 

ALL 3 GRAPHICS MODES £39 35 




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HABA Video Bigitiser £229.95 

(Professional Colour 512x512) 

NOW AVAILABLE? 



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Hi 



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DISCLAIMER 

Software Express is an independent company, having no 
connection with any imitators or clones! 



514-516 ALU 



ROCK R0AD f ALUM ROCK, BIRMINGHAM, 
021-328 3585 



E 



August 1986 AiaiiSTUser. 



llllMIIIII(U>--.l.rll LI 



Mi 



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:::::::::: 





iliiiiii:::: 
SBlflBB! 



STOP PRESS? 




:♦; 



PlMFJk-OE 



COMPUTING 



l|F -■ IVI 


CI j.j 


=P |lil$lf§f H l^* 


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ODDD 

onno 
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Altfic 

The ATARI Resource 



ANTIC volume 4, issues 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 

volume 5, issue 1 
ANALOG 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40 

£1.99 including postage. 

START — THE NEW ST MAGAZINE FROM ANTIC — 
COMING SOON! 

F.A.S.T.E.R. — THE NEWSLETTER ON A DISK FROM CANADA — ARTICLES, REVIEWS, 
PUBLIC DOMAIN PROGRAMS, 'C AND PASCAL TUTORIALS AND GEM DRIVEN 
INTERACTIVE MENUS — ALL FOR LITTLE MORE THAN THE PRICE OF A BLANK DISK! 

— £5.95+50p P&P 

MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS FOR ST SYSTEMS NOW AVAILABLE - PHONE FOR 

DETAILS 

LARGE RANGE OF ST BOOKS 

DUST COVERS FOR 520ST. SM124, PHILIPS/THOMSON MONITORS, SF 354/314 

1 30XE DUSTCOVER £4.95 



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REPLAY (INTERFACE INCLUDED) 
DIGIDRUM DIGISYNTH 
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PARTY QUIZ 
ALTERNATE REALITY 
RACING DESTRUCTION SET 

ZONE-X — 

PITSTOP II — 

TECHNICOLOUR DREAM — 

BOULDERDASHII — 

SPY VS SPY II — 

ATARI-LAB STARTER SET & LIGHT MODULE —TWO PACKS WITH 
MANUALS AND SOFTWARE — LIMITED STOCKS 
NORMALL Y£100 — £79.95 THE PAIR! 



ROM DISK TAPE 
— 29.95 — 



59.95 — — 



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■■■■■■■■■' 



The SpecialiSTs 'JIT 021-328 3585 

514-516 Alum Rock Road, Alum Rock, Birmingham 

Ask about our ST user Group 



August 1986 Atari ST UW 



m 



SUPERTEC ATARI USER OFFERS 





PREMIER 
SOFTWAREX 



... . . 

I.. .< 



ST Accounts 
ST Accounts 
Animator 
D&Man 

Degas 

Devpac ST 
Easy Draw 
Fortran 77 
GSTC 
Haba Spell 
Haba Writer 
Hippo Fonts 
H&D Base 
H&D Forth 
K-Comrn 
K-Graph 



•*.- - • ■ - - • • ■ • • i 



-• • 



Cashlink 
Chipsoft 
Microdeal 

Vera soft 

Bl .. 

Hisoft 

Mrgraph 

Prospero 

GST 



£309.25 

£134.95 

£26.95 

... £134.95 
£37.95 



... . 





.£48.95 



' 

i . . .I. ... . _ ,. 



Haba -..:::::::::::. ...£39.95 

Haba ... £65.95 

Hippo £3S.95 

H&D £89.95 

H&D £44.95 

Kuma £44.95 

Kuma £37.95 



1 040ST Monochrome System 

1040ST Colour SystGm 

520STM 5O0k Drive Monochrome Mo nilor 
520STM 500k Drive Colour Monitor 
SH212 20Mb Winchester Disk Drive ... 

1Mb Upgrade for 520ST ... 

Cumana Single 1Mb Disk Drive .. 

Cumana Double I Mb Disk Drive 

SF354 500k Disk Drive ... 

SF3 14 1 Mb Disk Drive ... 

K-Ram' 

K-Spread 

Laserbase 

Lattice C 

Modula-2 

Modula-2 Toolkit 

Music Studio 

Printmaster 

Sundog 

Trim 

The Pawn 

Time Bandit 

VIP Professional 

Disks SS/DD(5O0k| 

Disks DS/DD{ 1Mb) 



- 

... i.. •>. ... ... ,., 



■ •• • •- ' i 

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£134.95 
£129.95 

., £54.95 



Kuma ... . 

Kuma ... , 

LSI 

M eta com co 

TDJ 

TDI_ 

Activlsion . 

Unison 

Accolade 

Talent 



Rainbird 







£875 
£1099 
£657 
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£849 
£100 
£159 
£269 
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£28.95 
£44.95 
£89.95 
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£22.45 



Microdeal ,.. ,,, £26.95 



VIP 

Sony/Memo r?x 
Sony/Memorex 



£179.95 
.£25.00 
. £40.00 



- -■■ ■-■ 

Megamax C - The C development system now in stock £1 55 

Premier are one of the nation's leading mail order suppliers of ST software. We are a one stop shop, able to supply you with 
anything, from a box of disks to a full business system from our extensive stocks. All ai discounted prices and with a customer 
service second to none, 

Contact us for more information on products or full price lists. 

All prices Include VAT and delivery 

PREMIER SOFTWARE SUPPLIES 

45 Slinn Street, Sheffield S10 1 N W. Tel: (0742) 662005 

Callers by appoi'ntment only. • 



m 



-Ami ST User August 1386. 






AST 



ProdacVAS&T Starter System 

Price: £395 

Supplier: AS&T, 87 Bournemouth Park Road, 

Soutfiend-on-Sea, Essex SS2 SJJ. Tel: 0702 

618ZQ1 



THE AS&T Starter System is intended for 

the business or serious homa user. It is 

based on the Atari 520 STM r SM 124 mono 
monitor and standard software bundle, but 
with twin floppy disc drives and a printer 
added to form a complete working system. 

All units are fitted with mains plugs, and 
tested before despatch. Even consumables are 
included, in the shape of a box of 10 discs and 
2000 sheets of fanfold paper. The whole 
package comes at the attractive price of £995, 
which represents a saving of £265 compared 
with a similar system using the standard Atari 
disc drives. 

Notable components of the AS&T package 
are the twin floppy disc drives, each of 1mb 
capacity unformatted. These very neat one-third 
height units are made by NEC of Japan, and are 
compatible with both single and double sided 
3.5in discs. 

They are whisper-quiet in action, which 
suggests that they are suitably gentle with your 
precious discs. AS&T have reduced the desk 
space required' by mounting the disc drives in a 
bridge-like metal plinth, which stands over the 
computer keyboard unit and supports the 
monitor. 

Cabling is reduced compared with the 
standard Atari components by connecting the 
very low power consumption drives to the 
external computer power supply. If you wanted 
to buy the disc drives separatel y yo u would send 
your power supply to AS&T for modification 
under their exchange scheme, which has a one 
day turnaround. 

Owners of 1 040s- which have internal power 
supplies — would require a separate power 
supply for these disc drives to avoid the need to 
open up the keyboard unit. 

The printer in the Starter System is the 
MP-165 from Micro Peripherals, a leading 
supplier of both branded and own-brand 
machines. This is a nine needle dot matrix unit, 
capable of handling paper up to lOin wide, with 
tractor or friction feed. 

It has a rated speed in draft mode of 165 
characters per second, and is also capable of 
printing in near letter quality mode about a 
quarter as fast. It has a very complete 
specification, and can print European and 
Japanese characters at 1 2 and 1 7 characters per 
inch, as well as the standard 10, 

It is even capable of proportional spacing 
when using a suitable word processor and printer 
driver, and pf printing bit image graphics for 
screen dumps. 

The printer is Epson-compatible, although this 



Quiet drives 
enhance 

businesslike 
package 



standard does not extend to the NLQ mode. It 
may be controlled largely via software, which is 
much more convenient than via hardware 
switches - whether on top or round the back - 
though these may also be used- The printer 
ribbon is also Epson-compatible, and hence 
widely available. 

The system includes the standard Atari 
software — the word processor First Word, the 
programming languages Basic and Logo, and a 
painting program, Neochrome. The first is useful 
in the home or business, while the others afford 
opportunities for writing your own applications, 
and for relaxation. 

It offers the serious home and business user a 
complete system for word processing and more, 
while occupying a smaller desk area and costing 
significantly less than one using the standard 
Atari disc drives. It has ample scope for 
enhancement with new peripherals and software 
as user requirements change and grow, ■ 




Gordon 

Taylor 

reviews 

the AS&T 

Starter 

System 




— August l$86 Atari ST User, 



-03 




Reviewed 
by Peter 
Connors 




i - 



SALES LENBt 



PURCHRSE LEDGER 



GENERAL LEDGER 



STOCK COHTRflL 



KQRD PROCESSING 



DflTft BACKUPS 



EB5hLinh 



r ; SOILS! 1 ? ili^iar 3^£Q3i^43j332S5Mnxn^62i2a]3F?MII!BF3SniIS3F 39IS9 



Figure I: Main menu 



. ^ms%r^i^^^^^wmn:^^^^S3^ 








*mm wmm-xmm 












1. Cash Sales 


i fiVc Type 


BaUnte 


Budget 






2, Account enauirg 












3. Lcdqcr card 


A 


0.00 


0.00 






4. Stock enquiry 


1 


I.M 


Q.QO 




5. Notepad 


1 fl 


0.00 


D.QB 




6. Hard processing 


S I) 


0,00 


B.on 




17. Print a file 





o.oo 


B.Qfl 




Id. Change printers 


Ik 


U.flQ 


0,00 




3. Systen Info 


0- 


0.00 


Q.QO 






H 


coo 


O.PQ 




Which option? 


t 


0,00 


O.QO 






ii 


D.oe 


O.DQ 




10 Cleaning Towels 


1 


-7973,40 


25000.00 




11 Liquid Cleaners 


n 


-2470.55 


12QGQ,flO 




12 Bin Liners 





-1397.35 


neoo.ae 




13 


n 


O.QO 


o.oo 




14 


1 


fl.flfl 


MA 




15 


0.00 


O.QO 




Set budget anount on xni 


h account? 








(Press <RETIJHH> for wore 


<E5C> U Wit) 








FlMaF2ilMlJFimM-4ai 


g»s;i!in»2 wfflm mmMfiws. 





Figure If! Interrupt ability is most useful 

m 



A helping 
hand on 
the way to 
your first 
million 



Product: Cashlink ST Accounts 

Price: £295 

Supplier: Cashlink Software, Clogwyn Manor, 

Rhyd Ddu, Caernarfon, North Wales 

LL64 7YS 






IF you're an IBM PC or clone owner 
Cashlink Accounts for the ST is as welcome 
as a bad cold. This accounting suite costs 
less than half the price of the PC or Apricot 
version, and runs three times quicker than 
on the IBM. So how much does it cost, and 
what does it do so fast? The first is a short 
answer - £295 + VAT - but the second 
really needs a book all to itself. 

Anyone setting up a small business needs to 
keep account?. You can get away with the back 
of envelopes for a bit if you aren't serious about 
making money, but the taxman catches up with 
you eventually. 

If your turnover - the amount of money that 
passes through the business - is big enough to 
qualify for VAT registration then "eventually" 
becomes just three months, and customs and 
excise officers have been known to make 
midnight visits to offenders. 

There is also a positive side to keeping the 
books straight because if you need money to 
expand then potential backers need to see 
accounts they can understand. 

These figures tell them, and you, in what 
direction your business is heading — like a map. 
good accounts avoid commercial dead ends and 
abrupt falls. These accounts need to be recorded 
and presented in ways which fit in with standard 
accounting protocols. 

All the transactions you make are entered in 
ledgers - not those big leather books any more, 
but disc files. Every transaction can be entered in 
a general ledger and this can be subdivided into 
headings like purchase or sales. 

Purchases may have different VAT rates to be 
reclaimed from the VAT on your sales, which in 



Atari ST User August 1986. 



AST 



turn may have different discount rates for 
customers, each of whom will need sales printed 
on an invoice. 

Every time you sell something the stock of 
that item decreases. If your stock of left-handed 
guzzengers drops then you need to reorder 
before you lose customers with that traditional 
saying: "I'm sorry, but we're right out of them at 
the moment". If sales are integrated with stock 
control then your customers shouldn't get nasty 
surprises like that. 

Each month, quarter or financial year there 
will be demands on your accounts. Slow-paying 
customers may need another statement of what 
they owe, or even a final demand- The VAT may 
need to be worked out, or the Inland Revenue 
might want details of your employees' wages. 

All that paperwork has to be printed out with 
the correct addresses and details. Even with a 
word processor, keeping track of all the 
bureaucracy in the correct formats involves a 
small business in laborious paperwork, often 
with only part-time secretarial and accounting 
assistance. Above all it is profoundly boring. 

Cashlink Accounts comes to the rescue by 
doing all this and more from within one program 
on the ST- see main menu screendump in Figure 
I. It needs a 520ST and a double sided drive as a 
minimum configuration. Both program and data 
can be held on one disc with this hardware 
line-up, but the bigger your disc storage the more 
accounts and stock items the system can handle. 

If you need the hardware as well Cashlink 
Software supplies inclusive packages up to the 
1 0mb hard disc level. Cashlink Accounts doesn't 
use Gem, but instead uses its own windowing 
system which makes it possible to examine one 
section of the accounts while suspending work 
on another. 

This interrupt ability is available from pretty 
wel I anywhere within the accounting suite and Is 
one of the most attractive aspects of Cashlink — 
see screen dump in Figure II. From the main 
menu individual selections access sub-menus 
such as that for the general ledger in Figure III. 

For example, from beind your executive desk 
at the centre of the world's largest left-handed 
guzzenger business you may decide you need a 
profit and loss statement - an instant update on 
the state of your business - and in the middle of 
that you might wish to check that day's sales, 
and in turn you might want to make notes on 
them before you forget. 

The latter is possible because built into all this 
is a Wordstar-compatible word processing 
program which makes notes, composes reports 
and letters, and even prints labels for your 
monthly statements to customers. Figure IV 
shows the WP main menu. 

Documentation is every bit as good as you 
would expect for the price. The sections are 
divided up in the same way as the screen menus, 
so it is very easy to find the information relating 
to a function. 

Cashlink Software has also shown awareness 



RCCQUHTS LffflHIT/IRIfiL BHL8HCE; 



LISI ACCOUNT DETAILS 



CASH BOOH ENTRIES 



OPERflTIHG STflTEHEfir 



SET COHIfiOL 8CCDUKTS 



19 



PROFIT S LOSS 



11 



EBB Of PERIOD ROUTINES 

BUD&EIIKG 




8fOHCE SHEET 



12 



SPECIAL REPORTS 



a 



RUOIT TRftll/JOURMLS 
DEFIHE REPORTS 



ENTER JOURNAL TRANSFERS 



General LEdqer 



: i^EISir ?;IEIIll;^:SSLi^^M^ 



Figure ill: General ledger sub-menu 



a:\S7 User 



HOVZHjff- 



11 C 53 



JELfTMB- 



UflaD-VBHP IHScRT 



-ifi^EUiSEN! 



J)rron Keys/S/D/E/X: lft.rt.ua. <J*n Bacfcsosce: ta Isft *d: rafBna 

**Si left one n-ord n F! right one word Del, A G: under cursor A 3: onscraan nenu 

saQLLIHG A Y: current line "K; 6!3tX ienu 

*C! down one page *Ri up one page ' A T! word ta right A fl: quicfc nenu 

A t: down one line AHi up one line ' *?; insert cn.'aff A P; eriat nenu 



a 1 EBB 



E 



This is the Rain nenu of the Cashlink word processor] 



Figure iV: Word processor main menu 

of the needs of the small business user by 
including a step-by-step tutorial section in the 
handbook, together with sample accounts. 
Anyone at a loss with accounting terminology 
will find all the explanations they want here. 

Security hasn't been forgotten, and it is 
necessary to enter a code related to the serial 
number before the program can be run. Access to 
the ledgers is then controlled by different 
user-selected 13 character passwords for 
different parts of the accounts. If you really must 
use a password like 1234 then don't blame 
Cashlink if you find a mouse in the works. 

So is it worth it? Even if you're a world expert 
on left-handed guzzenger marketing and don't 
actually sit down at a keyboard or calculator 
yourself the reductions in secretarial and 
accounting costs will soon be evident compared 
with ar» all-paper system. 

If you run a one-man window-cleaning outfit 
those savings will probably take a long time to 
appear. However if you expect your business to 
grow rapidly - and we all dream — a 
computer-based system such as this is 
indispensable. After all nobody wants any 
hiccups on the way to the first million. 

Ten million is a problem, however, because the 
largest figure Cashlink Accounts will accept is 
£9,999,999. 99p. If 'that creates a serious 
difficulty for you there is only one answer - buy 
another ST, ■ 

AtSrlSTUser August 1986 __ 




MEGA^IAX C FOR THE ATARI ST 

direct from MEGAMAX INC's ILK. Representative 



The MEGAMAXCis probably lhebestCd«velopmentsyst€mavallableforUieATARI520ST.AIreadyvoleda&thebest 
C system tor the APPLE Macintosh, the new ATARI package is even better, packed with even more features and now 

available at a very realistic price tag of just £1 37 (ex VAT). 

■ This package is a complete development system, not 
just the compiler and common IN/OUT library. Take the 
Graphical Shell for example. MEGAMAX fully supports all 
GEM routines {AES.VDI and DOS> 

■ Full Resource Construction routines (MENUS. 
DIALOGUE BOXES and ICONS). 

■ Increases speed of correcting, altering and re-running 
programs by up to SIX times compared to Other C 
development systems. 



■ AS&T will provide full support toall their REGISTERED 
customers and dealers ( including PRESTEL mailbox for 
queries and replies). 

■ Library source code Listings available- 

■ Subject to sufficient user support there will be a 
newsletter and additional library routine source disc 
service. 

MEGAMAX C development system including 400+ page 
manual plus system and utility discs, 



MEMORY CARDS 



The AST-520 MEMORY CARD upgrades the standard 520 ST to 
ONE MEGABYTE of RAM, and costs under £l DO inclusive of VAT! 
The AST-2080, goes even further, brings the ft AM to TWO AND A 
HALF MEGABYTES for less than £400 inclusive! 




DISC DRIVES 



AST Disc Drives ate all 80-track double-sided, offering 720K (one 
megabyte unformatted) — tWI CE the storage capacity of the 
standard ST drive. They are available in 3.5 and 5.25 inch formats. 
The drives are daisy chained to the standard ST drive, using the 
power and data cables supplied. 




■ rotating me HAV ucsiatfes nilt afltel your guarantee, which w/H be roptacoi) Oy AST* 
0Wn Rfsnnne, AST *>ll install Iho upgrade 'or you. Jroe of charge, al our premises, for 
the AST -520 RAM upgrade, you can send In your ST keyboard with pay fietiron £103 to 
mcludt baaro and return oQS'ttge <C 10 H I'nwrtov ne>'-<«v serviift.'s/oaa.'ieeft. 




: 



SYSTEM CASES 



1. CASED ATARI DRIVES 

2. UNCASED &£" DRIVES 



You Can give your ST a *eally professional look with the AST 
SYSTEM CASE. It can hold two 3.5 inch, and one 555 inch floppy 
drives, or a Winchester drive together with theST power supply 
units. 





PLYNTHS 



1. CASED ATARI DRIVES 

2. UNCASED 3 ii" DRIVES 



..'.■i,,,, <>,. 



PRICES 

MEGAMAX C 

LIBRARY SOURCE DISC ... 

AST520 ,- 

3.5ins DRIVE cased with leads.. 

With sepa rate power supply , 

5.25ins DRIVE cased with leads 

With separate powersupply 

INSUREDPARCEL POST 

COURIER DELIVERY 

A.S.&T. Ltd. 

87 BOURNEMOUTH PARK ROAD 

SOUTHEND-ON-SEA 

ESSEX 

Phone 0702 618201 



■- « 





£157.55 

£20.00 

£99-99 

£99.00 

£124.00 

£124.00 

£148.00 

£250 

£7.00 



Advanced Systems and Techniques Ltd. offer a specialist ATARI ST service and 
guarantee. All computers are tested prior to despatch to ensure custo mer 
satisfaction. We offer unlimited advice together with a fast personal service. 



COMPUTERS 



j 



520STM E399.00 

520STIvH(1MEG) £495.00 

1040STF Colour Med Res. 

System £1148.00 

1 040STF Colour Low Res. 



System 



..•-•.. 



.,..£1033.00 



STARTER SYSTEM 



j £1100 | 



Contains; 520STIW with twin double 
sided drives, high resolution monitor, 
NLQ printer, plynth, box of paper and 
discs including cables free software 
and manuals. Delivery free. 



PRINTERS | 

Juki 5510 £239.00 

MP165 £229.00 

Citizen 120D £170.00 

Citizen MSP10 „, £279.00 

Star NL10 £239.00 

Quendatal120 £170.00 

SM804 £199.00 

Printer Leads £15.00 



DISC DRIVES ' 

SH204.20 Meg £849.00 

SF354 £149.00 

SF314 £199.00 

AST1000 

1 MEGABYTE Double Sided 
drive with connecting leads 
to join with your existing 
SF354/SF314.Nopower 

supplyonly £99.00 

Power Supply for 
AST1000 .£25.00 




ACCESSORIES J 

SM124 Monochrome Monitor ....£149.00 
Atari Colour Monitor Low Res ... £299.00 

Philips CM8533 £289.00 

AST Plynth £23.00 

AST System Case £39.99 

Box of 10Discs £27.60 

Box of 2000 sheets of fanfold 

paper £15.00 



AUTHORISED ATARI DEALER 

Please ri ng for demonstration of 
SYSTEMS from520STM's up to 
1040 STF with COLOUR MONITORS.and 
20 meg. WINCHESTER 



To order any of the above prod ucts call ASS T on 
0702 618201 



Opening hours 



Mon-Fri 0900-1730 
Sat 1100-1730 




ACCESS/VISA WELCOME 

Please make cheques payable to: 
AS&T LTD 



CARRIAGE 

DiscDfives £5.00 CompulersfS.CO Prinlerst&.OO 
Monitors E9.C0 Othgr Accessones E2.5Q 



Advanced Systems and Techniques Limited 

87 Bou rnemouth Park Road 
Southend-On-Sea 

Essex SS2 5JJ 
Telephone: 0702 618201 

ALL PRICES CORRECT AT TIME OF GOING TOPRESS 



mkroLiok 



No. 12 August 1986 



io association »Uh 




Help for the Boat Peoole 

OLINK is being usedto a „ . *»■■» ■ WUUIC 



Jfng hope to thousands of 
d.s.rossed Vwtoan, refugee 
Jiving in *he UK. 9 

ir,nl h ! ir P ''9 h| '»'gely 

.gnored these termer Boaf 
People have to ec0 m e a for 
9o.ten multitude of ha va _ 
"_°'5 crowded into substan. 
dard dwellings. * UOs(an - 

Their families are die 

«* land their ignorance of 
the system". 

and electronic mail services 
*• basing cases of hardsht 
b , V S*"B'"e unification 
«^N>«h ,n,o Wos.ern 9 

Many fo,m er 8oa , p 
"• suffering Pecaus9 ™ Dle 
*°Y arrived in flrltaln ^e" 



thIm faCt ,hra "-*I«8«« ai Of 

Chinese, speaking only a 

SES as 'ncapablo and 
sivar?V nd u m8nysuffe «d 
«ma as a result of their 

2X* adapt « *S2 

«Q«»a and dingy hoste)s P " 

vietn 3 m ese , ana euen y 
<*""«• go m „, un , t ;.7 



Here's YOUR chance 
to join Micro Link 



All you need to use Micro Link is a computer, 
modem, appropriate communications software and 
a telephone. Fill in this coupon below for derails 
on how to join: 

Please send me an application 
form to join MicroLink. 

My computer is 

My modem is 



I do not have a modem. 
D Please send details. 



Name .. 
Address 



POST TO: MicroLink, Europa House, 68 Chester 
Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport $K7 5NY, 



£S , Cen,re staf 'od by 

J* J ackson. one of the 
volunteers, safd: «{£** 
Links facilities wiii enab e us 

canons w«h r e f ug8& agQn , 

2* ° Ver the w °rld - 

ParfcuiarlvHongKong-and 
PU. ch di spersed fflmmes ^ 

"As well as , ne ,, 

«"*n of families. ourSSK 
concerned with ,w2*S 

&„£^*^»" 
mer "itegration into lilf 

^'V.forinstancr lp( ^ 
,hBm seI U P hi business" 9 




GUFF IS 




STILL TOPS 



OESP/TF what some critics 
might say the top show in 
London fs the Cliff Richard 
musical Time. 

At least that's the verdict 
of MicroLink subscribers 
according to the volume of 
bookings placed through 
TheatreLink, which is 
operated in association with 
renowned theatrical agency 
Edwards & Edwards. 

Although Time has been 
penned by some of the critics 
it beats t/ie long-running hit 
musical Cets into second 
piece in the MicroLink 
theatre-goers'' Top Ten, 

In third place comes Me 
And My Girl- another of the 
eight musicels in the 
poputarlty list - followed by 
42nd Street, with Starlight 
Express in fifth place. 

Another target for the 
critics. Mutiny-!, comes sixth 
followed by perennial favour- 
ite thriller The Mousetrap 
and the comedy hit Run Po 
Your Wife. 






*«**■ as a 5S been 
medium of d P ' ential 
between the rn^ mUniC3ti0n 



■m^Biszss 



Thr*™ ° mpulerf acili(ies. 
an « also S In „ ° Un '™ 5 



«*S "tap* •* «■» 

°«-nspec c ; a i^° n rr ea " h ' 5 



^«ne S s P r,deasVofui e -; 



AST 



H&D Base 
well worth 
the effort 

HAVING been a Dbase II freak for a long 
time I awaited the arrival of H&D Base from 
Chester Holmes and Oliver Duckworth with 
the anticipation of a pools winner wailing 
for his cheque. Why the excitement? 
Ashton-Tate's Dbase products have 
become so commonly used that they are 
virtually industry standards. 

The main reason for their popularity is the 
versatility given by the vast range of commands 
and the ability to execute these commands from 
a disc file just like a Basic program. Where an 
off-the-shelf datab ase is insufficient, or would be 
cumbersome to use, Dbase II is often the answer. 
In fad a tremendous amount of applications 
software has been written in this command 
language, though often the users are unaware of 

it. ;; 

H&D Base, like Dbase II, is a relational 
database — that is, it can process information 
contained in several files which are related. Only 
two files may be in use at the same time, but 
these two files may be linked together so that 
movement within one file will result in a similar 
movement in the second. 

The most efficient method of accessing a 
record is by means of indexes, and in this respect 
H&D Base is well-catered for, indexing on a 
single field or a combination of fields. Only one 
index may be in use at a time, but up to. seven 
indexes may be open - and therefore 
automatically updated - when data is added, 
deleted or amended. 

Commands are simple English-like words, and 
beginners should be able to create and use a 
database in a very short time. Basically, you may 
type CREATE filename and follow the prompts. I 
created a simple database for appointments, and 
the command LIST STRUCTURE would then 
display the database as in Figure I. 

The command APPEND then allows us to 
enter appointments into the database, and 
where repetitive data is common SET CARRY 
ON carries forward the data from the last record 
into the new. EDIT enables us to alter or delete 
the data already entered. 

One delightful attribute of H&D Base is that 
deleted records are not actually removed from 
the database until the PACK command is issued 
and this can be a lifesaver. 

Having entered the data H&D Base now 
comes into its own. For example, the command: 
LIST FOR DATE="25/07/86" 
. AN D. AM =T 
will list all morning appointments on July 25. The 



field AM has been setup as a LABEL field where 
it may only contain Y or T — for true, or N — for 
false. 

Changing data en bloc may be done with the 
REPLACE command: 

REPLACE ALL KEYWORD WITH "Fred" 

FOR KEYWORD=*'Bert" .OR. 

KEYWORD= "I.C.I." 

will change all of the appointments with Bert, or 
his company, to now be with Fred. These very 
simple examples give an idea of what may be 
done. 

H&D Base has its own report generator 
which, while rather unfriendly, works quite wall- 
It saves your report on disc as a text file which 
may be edited with the command file editor or 
reused as It is. 

There is no limit to the number of reports you 
may have other than the obvious one of disc 
space. If you need something special you can 
always write it yourself and the tutorial will 
assist. The editor is a definite improvement over 
th& Dbase II offering, which must be the worst I 
have ever used- H&D Base's editor, while 
primitive, is quick and efficient, though very large 
command files can be a problem. 

H&D Base is written in Forth and has the 
unusual ability of making all of the 200 or more 
words in the Forth dictionary available to the 
user. In addition bindings into GEM itself have 
been supplied with documentation on the disc. 
The manual is exemplary and better than 
Dbase's own. 

It says it is compatible with Dbase II 
command files, and programs ported over from 
an Octopus computer worked with only minor 
changes. The technical specifications of H&D 
Base are given In Table I, 

The first version of the program nearly gave 
me a nervous breakdown, it had a lot of bugs, 
one of the most infuriating being that all error 

messages were in colour. I have only a 
monochrome monitor and thus couldn't actually 
see them. A telephone call to the States brought 
an updated copy four days later curing most of 
the bugs, but the indexing still wasn't right and it 
was still prone to crashing without warning. 

Finally the production version arrived at my 
dealer, and so I set to work in earnest. With each 
new version there were more examples and 
documentation. The current version now has a 
sample Gem application and also a set of 









STRUCTURE FOR ' : 


INDEX IN USE: 


*JONE 




NUMBER OF RECORDS: 


PRIMARY SELECTED 


FLD NAME 


TYPE 


LENGTH DEC 


01 KEYWORD 


C 


015 


02 DATE - 


o 


008 


03 TIME 


. c 


005 


04 AM 


'L 


001 


TOTAL BYTES 




O0030 




Figure I: The structure of a sample database 
.Atari ST User August 1986 



By 

SIMON 
TERRY 

m 



AST 




progra ms written as command files to assist the 
beginner in starting to use the program. 

Program development, especially if you are 
using the Forth or Gem extensions, can still result 
in a crash but mercifully that is now infrequent. 
Shortcomings of the package are generally 
minor, but the error trapping could be better. The 
manual recognises that more error trapping will 
slow the operation, but a simple display of an 
errant program line when a program aborts 
would help debugging a great deal. 

I n terms of access speed s, fast it ain't. Use of a 
hard disc improves matters a great deal, and 
since hard discs at reasonable prices are 
imminent - by the grace of Atari - large 
customised databases running at reasonable 
speeds are eminently feasible. 

The slow speed has a plus side however - the 
data files are remarkably secure. A power failure 
in the middle of an editing session resulted in the 
loss of only two records which were still in the 
disc buffer, the remainder of the file being 
perfectly intact. 

The Forth commands appear to work, as do 
the Gem extensions, and I used the Gem sample 
supplied to operate as a shell for some of my own 
programs without much modification. 

However to make the best use of these 
extensions some knowledge of Forth and 
preferably a Gem reference book would be 



necessary. The Forth language gives access to 
the machine that Dbase II never had, opening a 
lot of doors to comms, networks, hardware ■— for 
example remote cash terminals - and of course 
graphics. The use of even the simple shell 
supplied gives the user the ability to run 
accessories, an ability not normally available in a 
non-Gem program. 

Despite its idiosyncracies and the wealth of 
databases now available I use H&D Base more 
than any other. If you are prepared to spend 
some time learning how to use this product you 
won't regret it, and books on Dbase II should 
help the beginner - you r dealer should be able to 
get them foryou H&D Base costs £99.95. 



Maximum Specifications 

Characters per field 254 

Characters per record 2,000 

Fields per record 97 

index key length (chars) 1 00 

Records per file: Limited only 
by disc space 
Numeric accuracy 8 digits 

Character string length 254 

Command line length 254 

Variables in SUM command S 



Table I 



, L-L_ 


Atari ST 


User} 


Advertisers 


' Index 


ASS 


^ 


AS&T 


... 24&25 


AtariUK 


8&9 


KECM 


20 


Metacomco 


--o 


Modula 2 Software 


4 _ 


Micro-deal 





Microworid 


... 12 & 13 


Nexus 


11 


Premier Software 


18 


Silica Shop 


/ 


Software Express 


... 16&17 


Supertech 


'° 


Twillstar 


, 2 



SERIOUS BUSINESS 
or SERIOUS HOBBY 

OUR SERVICE DOESN'T STOP AT JUST GIVING COMPETITIVE PRICES AND A 

FAST fBIENDLY SERVICE. WHV NOT JOIN QUA COMPUTER GROUP. 

PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE ETC. SWPUED FREE TO MEMBERS. 

SPECIAL ACORN. AMSTRAO & ATARI 520,'1G40ST SUPPORT SECTIONS 

URGE RANGE OF ATARI ST SQFTWAflE/H4R0\YARi/t}Q0K5 AW'LABLL 



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AlifisiaSTMffciflMbmeral £390(10 

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MUSIC ACCESSORIES 

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August 1986 AtariSTUser. 



American 

uiii$«sns 



■ ■if 1 * l. 
. ■,■ ■■ ■ ■ ■ 

. ■■- ■■ ■: ;■-■■ 

.:;;==-r:: ■" EDWARD SHARK reports 



ONE of the biggest selling 
points of the Atari range in the 
US lies in the plummeting 
hardware prices. 

They have fallen to levels 
ihai are attracting a whole 
new generation of Atari 
owners who have leapt on the 
Tramiel "'Power without the 
Price" bandwagon. 

Atari continues to forge 
ahead with software for the 
best-selling ST. which is now 
outselling the Commodore 
Amiga many times over in the 
US, thanks to the recent return 
of the Amiga to its old price of 
S1.6QQ (up by $500 after s 
summer promotional deal). 

Not to be outdone. Atari US 
is giving away a monochrome 
monitor to buyers of the 
520ST and SF354 disc drive 
- that makes a mono ST 
system around the S499 
(£380) mark. 

And 8 bit Atari owners 
shouldn't feel left out either, 
even if the UK Laskys chain 
has seemingly abandoned 
such owners, except for the 
1 30XE which is still on display 
in downtown UK Laskys 
stores. 

For $99 (£66) you can get 
the 65XE machine, complete 
with four items of software. 
Star Raiders. Pacman. Donkey 
Kong and Skywriter, worth 
S85-. Not bad value. 

The 65XE seems to be 
taking over from t he Atari VCS 
games cartridge system in the 
US, which, despite resusci- 
tation by Atari at recent US 
computer shows (more of 
which later), is still being 
shunned by increasingly 
mature games computer 
buyers. 

Following the 65XE's tail is 
a S399 (C265) package 
featuring the 1 30XE, disc 
drive and printer, along with 
the Atariwriter Plus word 
processing package and four 
other software titles - Music 
Composer. Star Raiders, 
Defender and Home Filing 
Manager. 

Potential buyers have the 



option of replacing the 1 30XE 
with the 65XE. for a $349 list 
price. You might think that 
sounds a little too close for 
comfort to ihe above S499 ST 
package, and you'd be right - 
some US dealers are shaving 
the 8 bit prices by as much as 
$50. 



t 



rm 



Atari's leadership on the 
personal computing front was 
quite clear with their attitude 
at the Consumer Electronics 
Show in Chicago during June 
where they had the biggest 
and most prominent stand in 
the computer section. 

The entrance was flanked 
by two special displays: "See 
the Power of Atari" featuring 
video digitisers, and "Hear the 
Power of Atari," with linked 
music synthesisers providing 
the aural sensations. 

And no, we're not just 
talking about the ST hero - the 

displays were divided evenly 
into 8 bit and ST products. 

As with the PCW show in 
London last September, Atari 
rented a block of 36 stands 
from the show organisers and 
sub-lot them to US software 
houses. 

Again, half the displays 
were allocated to the ST and 
the rest to the 8 bit machines, 
perhaps representative of 
Atari's growing reaEisati on that 
the public are a little worried 
that the firm may dump the 8 
bit machines. Above ail else, 
the message was clear at CES 
- Atari 8 bit machines are still 
alive and doing well. 

On the ST software front 
several distributors chose CES 
as a stand to unveil or 
announce forthcoming 
software packages for the 
68000 machine. 

Batteries Included an- 
nounced a wide range of ST 
, ■ 



titlos in the home and office 
category, including Thunder I 
their realtime spelling checker 
and l*S Talk, a terminal 
program with a whole host of 
features, including the spelling 
checker. 

Microprose had Silas 
Warner, author of many lop- 
selling computer games like 
Castle Wolfenstein and Robot- 
wars, demonstrating Silent 
Service for the ST, 

Baudville, Epyx, Firebird 

and Strategic Simulations 

were some of the software 
companies who announced 
expanded support for alt Atari 
products at the show. 

Several UK ST owners have 
complained of late that they 
are experiencing difficulty in 
getting connectors for stan- 
dard monitors. 

One international firm 
which specialises in mail order 
for connectors of this type, 
from DIY plug kits right 
through to custom connectors 
made to order, are At Your 
Service, 2856 Leechburg 
Road, Lower Burrell, PA 
15068, or call 0101 412 
335 4477 and ask for Mark 
Spires. 

The latest release available 
from Atari US this month is D B 
Master One, an enhanced 
version of the program given 
away by US dealers last 

December. 




Also available is DbMan, a 
dBase II clone with many extra 
features fOr the ST. 

On the 8 bit front. 
Planetarium and Star Raiders 
II are beginning to make an 
appearance in US stores. Both 
titles were greeted very 
favourably at the CES and 
Comdex shows. 

Baudville Inc has three 
new titles of home and 



entertainment software, Video 
Vegas (blackjack, poker, fruit 

machine and SO on), and Ted 
Bear's Rainy Day Games for 
young people. Contact them 
pn 0101 616 957 3036. 

Karate Championship from 
Epyx will keep the 8 bit 
machine owners happy with 
very realistic animation of 
martial arts, while for the ST 
Epyx are shipping Rogue and 
the revamped Temple of 

Apshai Trilogy. 

They also plan to release 
Winter Games, World Games, 
Super Cycle and Cham- 
pionship Wrestling for the ST 
series in good time for 
in good time for Christmas. 




I know many UK Atari 
owners have bought a modem 
for their ST, but are becoming 

frustrated by the dearth of 
good software available free 
for downloading on UK 
systems. 

While uneconomic for 
browsing, two major BBS 
systems in che US are now 
open for free downloading of 
software for the price of an 
international phone call. 

First is the official Atari BBS 
- Atari Base — which is 
available 24 hours a day at 
300 baud or 1200 baud (full 
duplex) on 0101 408 745 
5308. 

Atari Base has more than 
200 programs on line, all of 
which are available as public 
domain software, vvhich, if 
downloaded at 1200 baud via 
an international phone call, 
can work out at about £4 to £5 
per downloaded prqgram. 
assuming cheap rate calls. 

Another BBS in the US 

which offers a wealth' of free 

software for the ST is the 
Haste BBS which is accessible 
at the. same speeds on 0101 
713 955 9532. 



August 1986 Atari ST User. 



m 



SOFTWARE FOR FHF MRI SF 



VMCC ASSEMBLER MEM* @ 



£49.95 

A professional quality macro assembler with 
many useful features for the serious program- 
mer. Standard Motorola 68000 mnemonics. 
Macro expansions. Over 160 explicit error mes- 
sages. Fully formatted listings. Large range of 
directives, fncludes the source of a simple 
debugger. The macro assembler chosen by 
Commodore for the Amiga. 



>MCC PASCAL 



£89.95 

A powerful Pascal compiler that meets the 
exacting ISO 7185 standard (level 0). A fast, 
single pass compiler, generating native code. 
Comprehensive error handling. 32 bit IEEE for- 
mat floating point arithmetic and full 32 bit 
integers. Chosen by Commodore for the Amiga. 



Vlaeeice c 



£99.95 

The well known Lattice C compiler. A full 
Kernighan and Ritchie implementation. Com- 
prehensive libraries of UNIX and utility 
functions. Compatible with Lattice compilers on 
IBM-PC, Commodore Amiga, QLetc. Full IEEE 
format floating point arithmetic. Powerful data 
types including pointers, arrays, structures, 
unions, register variables etc; macros, condi- 
tional compilation and other pre-processors. 



£19.95 ON ITS OWN 

FREE WITH ANY METACOMCO LANGUAGE* 

MENU + provides ST users with a friendly envi- 
ronment to control their programs, using 
pull-down menus and the mouse. Easy-to-use. 
Runs single programs or batches , avoids repeti- 
tive command line entry. The user can add his 
own tools, arguments and options. Runs any 
programs - not just Metacomco products. 



ALL METACOMCO PROGRAMMING 

LANGUAGES FOR THE ST HAVE 

THESE ADVANTAGES- 

*■ INTEGRATED RANGE OF LAN GUAGES ON THE STAND OTHER 
68000s 

Meiacomco's range of languages for the ST provides an integrated 
and consistent programming environment for ST programmers. 
Program modules written in different languages can be linked 
together. Metacomco'sST languages are com patiblewiththeirlan- 
guages for Amiga and QL Make it easy to port your programs by 
choosing Metacomco. 

►■ GEMDOS LIBRARIES (Source cade provided) 

All Metacomco languages come with a set of GEMDOS libraries, 
making il easy to program thegraphics and the ottierteaturesof the 
ST. Full source code ot ail GEMDOS libraries rs provided , allowing 
programmers to modify them. The source code is well 

documented. 

►- CHOICE OF LINKERS 

All Metacomoo languages include a linker. Metacomco program 

modules can also be linked using ihe Digital Research linker. 
► FRIINDLY ENVIRONMENT 

All Metacomco languages now include MENU +, an easy-to-use 

programming environment using pull-down menus and the 

mouse. 
>- SCREEN EDITOR 

A powerful screen editor for preparing programs is included with 

every language. 
IV DETAILED MANUAL 

Every Metacomco language comes with its own detailed manual. 



< 




"EXISTING REGISTER ED USERS CAN 03TAIN AN UPGRAOE INCLUDING MENU 
ATA SPECIAL PRICE. PLEASE CONTACT METACOMCO DIRECT. 

26 PORTLAND SQUARE, BRISTOL BS2 8RZ, UK. 
TELEPHONE: BRISTOL (0272) 428781 

5353E Scolls Valley Drive, California 95065, USA, Tel; 1-800-252-6382 



Utt«;saMa(m*xtfur?ice!tt.GEMOOSreataae^i*otD*m QLsifKewcSiM.tfleiKit'i 



Lid. 



PHONE TODAY, OR POSTTHIS COUPON TO: METACOMCO, 26 PORTLAND SQUARE, BRISTOL BS2 8RZ 
PLEAS ESEND ME FOR THE ATARI ST: . Flbrtl ft __ . Mjr ._ ltf , ^ nn 

I ENCLOSE A CHEQUE FOR£ OR DEBIT 

MY ACCESS/VISA NO. DZT 



MACROASSEMBLER £49.95 

MCC PASCAL £89.95 □ 

LATTICE C £99.95 □ 

M£NU+ £19.95 D 

MORE INFORMATION □ 

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